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Gbe Xafee lEnglteb Classics 

EDITED BY 

LINDSAY TODD DAMON, A. B. 

Prof*88or of Ehetoric in Brown University 



TEbe Xafee English Classics 

WASHINGTON 
WEBSTEE and LINCOLN 

i i 

SELECTIONS FOR 

The College Entrance English Requirements 



EDITED BY 

JOSEPH VILLIERS DENNEY, 

PROFESSOR IN THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY 



CHICAGO 
SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 



76 U^ 



Copyright, 1910 
By SCOTT, FORESMAN & COMPANY 



©GI.A265412 



PREFACE. 

American speeches have always been studied en- 
thusiastically by Americans; not primarily because 
of their literary value, but because of their satis- 
fying statement of American ideals. The words of 
Washington, Webster, and Lincoln express the national 
aspiration in ways that are forever memorable. Their 
phrases have passed into maxims and into the daily 
speech of their countrymen. The appeal they make is 
to the historical imagination. Consequently they can be 
appreciated best by those who bring to the reading the 
fullest knowledge of the historical events and govern- 
mental principles to which they refer. For this reason 
the notes explain, or put the student in the way of 
explaining for himself, the leading historical ideas with 
which Washington, Webster, and Lincoln deal in their 
addresses. But while the interest in these addresses is 
primarily historical, the editor has not neglected the 
literary and rhetorical phase of the study. To this phase 
are devoted a part of the introduction and a considerable 
body of the notes. 

Columbus, Ohio, January, 1910. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface 5 

Introduction : 

Occasions for Speaking 9 

Kinds of Public Address 10 

The Oral Quality 14 

Fashions in Public Address 15 

Methods 17 

The Parts of a Discourse 19 

1. The Introduction 20 

2. The Discussion 23 

Outline of the Bunker Hill Monument Address ... 24 

3. The Conclusion ' 34 

Text: 

Farewell Address George Washington. ... 35 

The Character of Washington . . . Daniel Webster 56 

The Bunker Hill Monument Daniel Webster. ...... 74 

Speech at Independence Hall. . . .Abraham Lincoln 100 

First Inaugural Address Abraham Lincoln 102 

Letter to Horace Greeley .Abraham Lincoln 115 

Speech at Gettysburg Abraham Lincoln 117 

Second Inaugural Address Abraham Lincoln 118 

Last Public Address Abraham Lincoln 121 

Abraham Lincoln " The Spectator " 127 

Notes 135 

7 



INTRODUCTION. 

OCCASIONS FOR SPEAKING. 

It is often said that oratory is on the decline. The 
occasions are rare, we are told, when there is a real 
demand for it. The newspaper, the magazine, and the 
popular novel have come, usurping the function per- 
formed by the orator of the olden time. When, as in 
our day, many can write and practically all can read, 
why should any speak ? It is doubtless true that oratory 
— in the sense of heightened appeal to the feelings — is 
not so often heard as formerly. It has almost disap- 
peared from legislative halls and has become less fre- 
quent in courts of law and in some other places where it 
once nourished. But in the meantime, in these and a 
thousand other places, public speech of a less preten- 
tious and less ardent sort, — addressed primarily not to 
the feelings, but to the reason, — has become almost a 
daily necessity. This increase in the number of situa- 
tions calling for public address is due to the complexity 
of modern life. All of our professions and trades, all 
of our enterprises, — political, religious, philanthropic, 
educational, and social, — even our pleasures and sports, 
are highly organized. Each has its stated meetings, each 
its occasions for the oral communication of ideas and 
feelings. There probably never was a time when these 
occasions were half so numerous as they are today. As 
a result, the art of public speech has become less of a 
profession, less a matter of set rules and formulae, less 

9 



10 INTRODUCTION 

the possession of a particular class of people exclusively 
devoted to its cultivation, and more of a staple need of 
the many. A good reason, this, why every educated per- 
son should wish to learn more about it. Carlyle con- 
gratulated the English on the fact that they were a na- 
tion of poor speakers. He thought that the less talking 
there was, the greater would be the amount of useful 
work accomplished. But since some talking is in- 
evitable in order that work may be directed into 
channels that are worth while, it seems a strange 
reason for pride in any nation, or in any indi- 
vidual, that the thing is done poorly. Carlyle's 
friend, Emerson, had a better word for his countrymen, 
when he wrote that "if there ever was a country where 
eloquence was a power, it is in the United States. Here 
is room for every degree of it, on every one of its ascend- 
ing stages, — that of useful speech in our commercial, 
manufacturing, railroad, and educational conventions; 
that of political advice and persuasion on the grandest 
theatre, reaching, as all good men trust, into a vast fu- 
ture, and so compelling the best thought and noblest 
administrative ability that the citizen can offer. And 
here are the services of science, the demands of art, 
and the lessons of religion, to be brought home to the 
instant practice of thirty millions of people. Is it not 
worth the ambition of every generous youth to train 
and arm his mind with all the resources of knowledge, 
of method, of grace, and of character, to serve such a 
constituency ?" 

KINDS OF PUBLIC ADDRESS. 

In the quotation just given, Emerson suggests a 
classification of speeches. The principle of his classifi- 
cation is the relative importance of their subject-matter. 



INTRODUCTION H 

His first division includes utterances of immediate prac- 
tical utility, utterances that deal with affairs and that 
deal with affairs mainly on the matter-of-fact basis; 
beginning with commerce, but rising successively to the 
larger interests involved in manufacturing, in the rail- 
road problem, in education. His second division in- 
cludes those utterances that touch our political interests. 
It is higher than the first because here we have to deal 
not merely with matters of fact, but with matters of 
national sentiment and aspiration ; consequently there is 
here offered a broader field for the element of advice and 
persuasion. His third division includes those utter- 
ances that deal with man's most vital interests, speeches 
of which the end is to render science, art, or religion most 
serviceable, — to make them a part of the life of every 
man. Here the field for the element of persuasion is 
widest. It is clear that Emerson's classification will 
apply equally well to written discourse and that it 
covers the field. It is as specific also as a classification 
of so many species can be made and remain a true 
classification. It would not be difficult to place any 
speech in one of Emerson's three divisions. 

A classification on an entirely different principle was 
made by Aristotle. His principle of classification is 
the attitude of the audience toward the speech. Audi- 
ences, he says, are either judges of things done in the 
past, as are legal judges and juries ; or they are judges of 
things proposed for the future, as are legislative or 
political assemblies; or they are judges of the speech 
itself considered merely as a work of art. Hence 
Aristotle classifies oratory as (1) judicial, or the oratory 
of the bar, the aim of which is the securing or protecting 
of personal rights by convincing and persuading judges 
and juries; (2) deliberative, or the oratory before con- 



12 INTRODUCTION 

ventions, assemblies, legislatures, and public meetings, 
political, religious, commercial, or educational; and (3) 
epideictic, or the oratory of display, now more fre- 
quently called occasional oratory, under which heading 
modern writers who follow Aristotle have put prac- 
tically all secular speaking that is not easily classified 
as judicial or deliberative, — the eulogy, the anniversary 
address, the dedicatory address, the popular lecture, 
the commencement address, the after-dinner speech, 
etc. To all this it is necessary to add (4) 
pulpit oratory, a species that has appeared since 
Aristotle wrote. The mere statement of this classi- 
fication reveals its remoteness from modern life and its 
insufficiency as a classification of the multifarious public 
speaking of our day. The basis of the Aristotelian 
division is the mental attitude of the audience. But 
the psychology of audiences is not so simple a matter 
as this four-fold division assumes it to be. Emerson 
once called attention to the undoubted fact that every 
audience is composed of many audiences; that the 
speaker finds himself addressing now one, now another, 
of these lesser audiences; that very rarely, if ever, may 
a homogeneous state of mind be presumed in all 
listeners ; that the very same listener may be successively 
in several mental attitudes during the same address. 
The principle by which orations are to be classified 
cannot, then, be a principle based solely upon a homo- 
geneous state of mind which probably does not exist. 
It is clear, too, that the state of mind appealed to by 
a deliberative oration may be, perversely enough, that 
which this classification assigns exclusively to judicial 
oratory. Modern pulpit oratory, also, may be, and often 
is, judicial or deliberative in spirit; it may look either 
to the past or to the future. The epideictic was thought 



INTRODUCTION 13 

by the Greeks to be best illustrated in the eulogy and 
the invective ; but surely it is not just to regard these 
as forms of display and to judge them solely by artistic 
considerations. Even the modern oratorical contest, 
which is most often accused of being purely epideictic, 
rejects as inadequate this basis of judgment and de- 
mands a judgment based upon the value of the thought 
as well as upon the style and the delivery. In spite of 
all this, the psychological fact on which Aristotle based 
his classification remains true, — that a speaker must con- 
sider his audience and must try to adapt his material to 
what he supposes the mental state of a majority of his 
listeners to-be. The ideal standard of speech thus becomes 
not mere self-expression, for self-expression implies no 
thought of the audience; but rather self -communication,. 
which implies a constant effort to carry our ideas over 
to those who listen to us. This ideal standard we owe 
to Aristotle. 

A third classification divides spoken discourse, as 
written discourse is usually divided, into descriptive, 
narrative, expository, and argumentative. The principle 
of division here is the rhetorical process employed. This 
classification makes no attempt to describe a eulogy, or 
a sermon, or a speech at the bar, or an after-dinner 
speech, or any other kind of speech, as a distinct species 
having a quality of its own that no other species pos- 
sesses. It assumes that the vital characteristic of any 
utterance is not indicated by its popular class label. 
It assumes that eulogies, sermons, and the rest, differ 
so widely in variety and method, that no class character- 
istic that is at once useful and true can be found for 
each of them. But every speech may be examined for 
its rhetorical process, and this examination will show the 
fundamental types of oral discourse. This classification, 



14 INTRODUCTION 

too, is imperfect; for a speech that is descriptive may- 
use, as accessory to its purpose, narration, exposition, or 
argument, as it needs ; and so with the others. The truth 
is that we must keep in mind all three of the systems 
of classification when studying any speech, — Emerson's, 
Aristotle's, and that of the rhetoricians, — if we would 
arrive at anything like a complete judgment; for (1) we 
must think of the importance of the subject-matter 
as Emerson thought of it; (2) we must think of the 
speech as an effort at communication with a certain 
audience, as Aristotle thought of it; and (3) we must 
think of the effectiveness of the process employed, as 
the rhetoricians enjoin. 

THE ORAL QUALITY. 

Whatever their classification, most successful speeches 
have one marked characteristic in common. Even when 
reduced to print, they appeal primarily not to the eye 
but to the ear. The attentive reader feels called upon 
in imagination to hear a speech as he reads it. If his 
mind is active he images also the speaker, the audience, 
the occasion; and is impelled to find out as much as 
possible about the feelings that ruled the hearts of men 
when it was delivered. He is ready to make concessions 
to cover the loss which the spoken sentence may suffer 
when printed. A printed extemporaneous address when 
read critically will usually show faults of phrasing 
that were doubtless overlooked by those listeners who 
shared the speaker's feelings. Speech has an excellence 
of its own, entirely apart from its literary quality. More- 
over, in the leisure of reading, we often take pleasure in 
a certain subtlety and fineness of statement; we like to 
make our own inferences ; we accept mere hints of what 
we are expected to think, and we have time to suspend 



INTRODUCTION 15 

reading, if need be, in order to make sure of our ground. 
In spoken discourse, there is no time for this. The 
speaker must move forward to his conclusion by a simple 
plan and a directness of statement that leaves no doubts 
pending. A speech may have all of the literary virtues 
and may yet fail for lack of simplicity of structure and 
the easy intelligibility which comes from direct idiomatic 
statement. Having these latter, together with energy 
and insight into the meaning of the occasion, a speech 
will be effective, though it lack grace, suggestiveness, 
refinement, and even strict grammatical accuracy. We 
prize in a speech certain of the qualities of good con- 
versation, — unpretentiousness, short and pointed phras- 
ing — but not its waywardness; in a speech we look for 
the straight-forward march to partial and complete con- 
clusions. These characteristics of speech, which may 
be called the oral (or, equally well, the aural) quality, 
are forced upon the speaker by the immediate presence 
of his audience. Some writers, too, are keenly conscious, 
while composing, of those whom they are addressing; 
they hear each sentence as they put it on paper. Their 
writing is essentially oral although it may never be 
spoken. Many an open letter or newspaper editorial, 
sometimes even a state paper, has this oral quality. 
Some spoken discourses lack it; they are essays rather 
than speeches, addressed to the eye rather than to 
the ear. 

FASHIONS IN PUBLIC ADDRESS. 

While the notion of addressing a specific audience, 
with its resultant (the cultivation of the oral quality) 
has persisted since the days of Aristotle, and is, indeed, 
the explanation of the present ideal of public speech, — 
effective self-communication, — it is equally true that 



16 INTRODUCTION 

fashions have changed in this as in the other arts. The 
essential worth and dignity of the old classical oratory 
cannot be questioned; yet its manner would by many 
be accounted mannerism today. For instance, public 
taste at the present time is somewhat intolerant of any 
but the most indirect and carefully disguised attempts 
at emotional appeal. We want the facts: the facts, we 
think, carry their own appeal; having the facts, we 
think that we know how to feel about them. Hence 
arises the greater share of the intellectual element in 
the speeches of today as compared with those of former 
times; and the more scrupulous regard for accuracy 
of statement. Hence, too, has come about the gradual 
abandonment of certain fashions that were once preva- 
lent, and the adoption of new fashions. It was once 
the fashion, for example, for a young lawyer addressing 
a jury to refer humbly to his youth and inexperience, 
or to eulogize the jury system. It was once the fashion 
for a skillful speaker to apologize for a pretended lack 
of skill. It was once the fashion always to emphasize 
the importance of the subject, even though every one 
appreciated its importance. These things were not 
insincerities ; they were the conventions of the moment ; 
they were expected. It is the fashion today to 
do none of these things, to take much for granted, 
and (whether intrinsically a good fashion or not) to 
get speedily to the essential point to be presented, with 
very little preliminary or introductory matter. The 
fear of delay, the fear of over-formality, which prevails 
among speakers today, while generally wholesome, is 
doubtless the cause of a certain abruptness, nervousness, 
and undue haste, that are often noticeable in contem- 
porary speaking. We have rid ourselves of indirection, 
and of tardiness in taking hold of our theme; but we 



INTRODUCTION 17 

have sacrificed something of ease and grace in the 
process. To be always relentlessly business-like, direct, 
r and practical in speech, may itself, at some future time, 
be criticised as a mannerism of the present age. There 
is, however, in modern speeches, a nicer adjustment 
of the time-element to the importance of the message. 
Economy of time has become a paramount considera- 
tion. Speakers today usually know, beforehand, how 
much time they are expected to occupy, and govern 
themselves accordingly. 

METHODS. 

Not only do oratorical fashions change from age to age, 
but at any given moment there are marked differences of 
method. Among the Greeks, for instance, most of the ora- 
tors and teachers insisted upon elevation of thought and 
sentiment, with diction to match, as essential to a good 
speech; but then, as now, there were successful speakers 
who, like Andocides, professed a contempt for the rules 
of rhetoric and for any serious study of the art which 
they themselves practised; who paid little attention to 
arranging their material in an orderly way; who relied 
on a fund of good stories to help them in times of need ; 
and who advised speakers to trust to their native gifts, 
and to the inspiration of the occasion. There were 
some, like Hyperides, who advocated a conversational 
manner, the plainest of plain speech, and a large use of 
colloquialism, in opposition to those who advised the 
cultivation of a more dignified, stately, or highly ornate 
diction. Some studied the art of the public actors 
in order to learn "the outer signs of eloquence" and thus 
cultivated a theatrical manner of speaking; others, dis- 
daining this as shallow trickery, studied the art of being 
artless. There were those, however, who advocated 



18 INTRODUCTION 

the sound principle that the cultivation of the "inner 
spirit," — the systematic and prolonged education of the 
mind and heart, the achievement of a strong character, 
— should precede and accompany the study of the "outer 
signs." Many followed iEschines in practising written 
composition assiduously and in studying general litera- 
ture and philosophy, as essential elements in the educa- 
tion of a speaker. Demosthenes, the greatest of 
Greek orators, illustrated the value of unremitting 
and purposeful labor. In order to overcome de- 
fects of voice, articulation, breathing, and physical 
manner, he imposed upon himself arduous exer- 
cises through a series of years; he watched the ways 
of the actors and of other professional speakers, and 
imitated them in those points which seemed appropriate 
to his own personality and temperament. He gave seven 
years of his life to practising written composition and 
to studies in history, law, and statesmanship. Believing 
that he could win no lasting success without worthy 
thinking, he endeavored in all of his studies to find out 
what was fundamentally right and not merely what was 
expedient, in order that, throughout his life, he might 
habitually and unconsciously apply the highest test to 
every question that he might be called upon to discuss. 
In thus devoting himself primarily to gaining sound 
knowledge and to developing moral earnestness, while 
steadily learning, through practice and a study of 
models, the approved modes of speech that were suitable 
to himself as an individual, he set for all time the 
example of a sound method of training for effective 
self-communication on any subject of discussion; a 
method involving first, adequate knowledge of the facts 
to be discussed ; secondly, the ability and the disposition 
to apply principles of right and wrong to the facts as 



INTRODUCTION 19 

ascertained; thirdly, attention to the best way of pre- 
senting the matter. The Greek and Latin writers on 
public speaking devoted a great deal of discussion to 
the first and second of these points. Later writers have 
said less about these, devoting their attention almost 
exclusively to the art of presentation ; but always assum- 
ing the preeminent importance of knowledge and sin- 
cerity. 

THE PARTS OF A DISCOURSE. 

The usual division of any discourse is into (1) intro- 
duction (see pp. 20-23), (2) discussion (pp. 23-34), 
and (3) conclusion (p. 34). These terms suggest 
little more than beginning, middle, end. The ancient 
writers enumerated the following as parts of an address : 
introduction, the narration or exposition, the proposi- 
tion, the confirmation, the refutation, the conclusion; 
and some added the excursus or digression. This min- 
uter division is still useful as indicating certain elements 
that enter or may enter into the make-up of a speech, 
certain functions to be performed, or, for good reason, 
to be consciously left unperformed. In most argumenta- 
tive discourses, for example, a formal narration or expo- 
sition of facts, as a separate part, preliminary to the 
proposition and the confirmation of proof, is unneces- 
sary: yet the element of narration or exposition will 
appear at any stage of the discourse as needed. -Likewise 
proof and refutation may or may not constitute the main 
body of a discourse : in a discourse that is essentially nar- 
rative or expository, argument may be absent altogether, 
while in others there is nothing but argument. The 
proposition, or, if there be no proposition, the subject, 
can hardly be considered a part of discourse, yet its 
enumeration with the parts points clearly to the need 



20 INTBODUCTION" 

of some unifying element in every discourse ; and indeed 
the excursus, or the digression, an element now almost 
universally condemned as lacking all excuse for being, 
was originally offered in answer to the human need of 
relief from too strict an adherence to the logic of the 
subject and as an opportunity for the speaker to un- 
burden his mind on any matter that logic would exclude 
from his discourse. We shall adopt as parts of discourse 
the introduction, the discussion, and the conclusion ; and, 
in the treatment of each, we shall ask what elements may 
properly enter into its make-up. 

1. The Introduction. The work of the introduction is 
to provide all that is needed by way of preliminary infor- 
mation and in order to secure a favorable disposition to- 
wards the ideas that are to follow in the discussion. An- 
cient writers, however, restricted the introduction to the 
work of gaining the active good will of the audience. 
They assigned to another part of the discourse the work 
of giving preliminary information. The chief function 
of the introduction, they thought, is. to overcome hostil- 
ity in the mind of the audience, should hostility exist ; to 
win attention, and to create an interest in the subject, 
leaving no hearer in a state of indifference. One of the 
best recommendations of Aristotle may be stated thus: 
the way to gain good will is to show good will. In 
general, good will is made apparent in modern speeches, 
more often in the tone and spirit of the opening than 
in any direct statement. 

A second method of gaining good will is the appeal, 
direct or indirect, to community of interest, or to class 
or party spirit. The tacit assumption in this appeal 
is that because speaker and audience are of the same 
nationality, church, political party, school, club, social 



INTEODUCTION 21 

class, trade, profession, or other occupation, enjoy the 
same intellectual pursuits, or even the same sports, they 
will be inclined to agree in all matters. Webster, eulo- 
gizing Washington, naturally touches the chord of patri- 
otism; and at the outset of the Monument Address he 
voices the common feeling as he conceives it. His second 
paragraph is devoted exclusively to the patriotic note. 

While showing good will, however, while seeking to 
identify himself with his audience, the speaker must 
not surrender any of his convictions or any of his self- 
respect. As Aristotle long ago pointed out, a speaker 
commends himself chiefly by his good judgment and 
reasonableness, by his reliance on his own worth and 
the worth of his message. But modern taste forbids him 
to assert his good qualities. A speaker's reasonableness, 
his worth, his virtue, or strength, declare themselves in 
his treatment of his theme. The personal introduction 
in political or other controversy, however, is still com- 
mon, and, indeed, is unavoidable when the speaker has 
been made the object of criticism and thus has himself 
become part of the matter at issue. It is used with a fine 
reticence in Washington's Farewell Address and with 
solemn effectiveness in Lincoln's Independence Hall 
address. But, excepting instances of obvious necessity, 
like those just named, the personal introduction will not 
often suggest itself in these days as an easy or appropri- 
ate method of beginning. 

Closely related to the personal introduction, and often 
employed in connection with it, is the introduction based 
upon the importance of the subject. As a general rule 
in modern addresses the importance of the subject is a 
thing to be assumed rather than directly asserted. The 
importance of the subject is either self-evident at the 
outset or is to be made evident by the whole discourse. 



22 INTRODUCTION 

It should be recognized by the audiences as a result of 
the speech, rather than declared by the speaker at the 
beginning. 

Probably the easiest and most economical introduc- 
tions are those which are based on some pertinent re- 
mark that has been made by another. An introduction 
of this kind seems to continue a discussion already 
begun in people's minds, and offers a point of departure 
either in harmony with the quoted sentiment or in 
contrast with it. The introduction by anecdote belongs 
to this class. 

Whatever the subject matter chosen for the introduc- 
tion it must, in order to suit the modern taste, bear 
close relevance to the theme of the discourse. The 
irrelevant introduction advocated by some, practised 
by many, may be attractive in itself, but it arouses 
expectations that are destined not to be fulfilled, and 
its final effect, when it is recalled by a hearer, is to 
diminish the total influence of the speech. Nowhere is 
there greater danger, than in the introduction, of vio- 
lating unity of tone. If the introduction is keyed at 
too high an elevation of thought or feeling or is too 
finely finished, the speaker may later find himself un- 
able to maintain the level on which he started and the 
decline to a lower level is sure to be disappointing. 
Speakers of experience are usually wary of this danger 
and prefer to begin on a level from which it will not be 
difficult to rise as the essential parts of the discourse are 
taken up. The summit of an inclined plane is not a good 
point of departure in any discourse. The splendid intro- 
ductions of Webster must have put many of his first 
hearers in fear that no man, however great, could begin 
on so high a plane and maintain himself there for long. 

The usual advice to the inexperienced is to prepare 



INTEODUCTION 23 

the introduction after the body of the discourse has 
been written. The advice is sound if understood as a 
warning against a pretentious, a trite, or a far-fetched 
introduction, or against one that for any reason is out 
of tune with the prevailing note of the discourse. The 
further advice that if an appropriate introduction has 
not suggested itself by the time the body of the dis- 
course is completed, all attempt at introduction should 
be given up, is also sound. Earlier writers on oratory 
provided for this very contingency by naming one of 
their varieties of introduction "the abrupt beginning." 
To this advice may be added the reminder, contained in 
a word of Walter Bagehot's, that excepting in times of 
great excitement an audience begins to listen in a de- 
cidedly "factish" frame of mind. At the outset it pre- 
fers the particular rather than the general, facts rather 
than principles, the specific instance rather than the 
universal truth, the intellectual rather than the emo- 
tional. 

2. The Discussion. The main body of an address in- 
cludes one or more of the following elements: (1) a 
division or partition of the subject, (2) definition, (3) 
narration, description, or exposition, (4) proofs and ref- 
utation. ^The order in which these things appear in an 
address is determined by the nature of the address. 
One or more of them may in many cases be omitted al- 
together. Attention to the first will always be necessary. 

(1) The division or partition of the material is not 
often formally announced in the finished address, as was 
once the custom. When it is so announced it is usually 
accounted a part of the introduction. Yet it is with 
the organization of the body of the discourse that the 
partition is concerned; and, in any event, there must 
be in the preparation of a discussion a division or par- 



24 INTRODUCTION 

tition of the material with a view to orderly presenta- 
tion. Waiving the question whether the partition is 
at the end of the introduction or at the beginning of 
the discussion, we may say that the best division is the 
simplest and most natural, with each part distinct from 
the others, yet with all the parts standing in intelligible 
relationship to one another and to the main idea. In 
spoken more than in written discourse, the plan must 
be perfectly clear, because the hearer has no time to 
think back over the speech in order to consider relation- 
ships of ideas. He is occupied with the passing word. 
As an illustration of the value of a clear, self-con- 
sistent partition, let us study the underlying structure 
of Webster's Bunker Hill Monument Speech. The 
speech is of the expository class; there is no debatable 
proposition; there is only a subject and an occasion re- 
quiring a voice to express its dominant mood. The plan 
which follows fails, of course, to reproduce what is most 
characteristic and valuable in the speech, the element of 
personality, the emotional uplift ; but it shows the chief 
ideas in their relationship. 

Outline of the Bunker Hill Monument Address, 
introduction. 

1. Impressiveness of the occasion (p. 74, 11. 1-8). 

2. Patriotic memories and hopes peculiar to Americans in- 

spired (p. 74, 1. 9— p. 76, 1. 17). 

I. By the significance to them of the date and place 
(p. 74, 1. 9— p. 75, 1. 7). 
II. By the significance to them of the discovery of 
America (p. 75, 11. 8-23). 



INTEODUCTION 25 

III. By the significance to them of colonial history (p. 

75,1. 24— p. 76,1. 8). 
IV. By the significance to them of the Eevolution (p, 

76, 11. 9-17). 



s DISCUSSION". 

A. Purposes of the Society in providing for the Monument 

(p. 76, 1. 18— p. 77, 1. 2). 
I. Not that a monument is necessary, but to show 
our appreciation of the deeds of our ancestors, 
to keep alive similar sentiments and to foster 
a regard for the principles of the Eevolution 
(p. 77,11. 3-26). 

II. Not to cherish hostility or the military spirit, 
but to express our sense of the benefits which 
have come through the events commemorated 
(p. 77, 1. 27— p. 78, 1. 29). 

B. Mighty events in America and Europe since the Eevolu- 

tion (p. 78, 1. 30— p. 80, 1. 18). 

C. Apostrophe to the survivors of the Eevolution (p. 80, 1. 

19— p. 81, 1. 20). 

D. Tribute to the patriotic dead (p. 81, 1. 21— p. 82, 1. 1), 

especially to Warren (p. 82, 1. 2— p. 82, 1. 19). 

E. Address to the living survivors (p. 82, 1. 20 — p. 83, 1. 23). 

F. The unity of spirit in the Colonies and the effect of the 

Battle of Bunker Hill, especially upon La Fayette (p. 
83, 1. 24— p. 87, 1. 25). 

G. Eulogy on La Fayette (p. 87, 1. 26— p. 89, 1. 7). 

H. Improvement in the world since the Battle of Bunker 
Hill, especially in politics and government (p. 89, 1. 8). 
1. Diffusion of knowledge and community of ideas; 
with results (p. 89, 1. 23— p. 90, 1. 33). 
II. Difference between the Eevolution in America 
and the French Eevolution (p. 91, 1. 28). 
a. America was accustomed to representative 
government (p. 92, 11. 4-30). 



26 INTKODUCTION 

b. Europe was a stranger to the popular 

principle (p. 92, 1. 31— p. 93, 1. 4). 

c. Europe has, however, gained by the change 

(p. 93, 11. 4-21). 

(1) Everywhere there is a desire for 
popular government (p. 93, 11. 
22-32). ^ 
III. The influence of world opinion upon arbitrary 
governments (p. 93, 1. 33— p. 94, 1. 19). The 
case of Greece (p. 94, 1. 20— p. 95, 1. 33). 
IV. The rise of independent states in South America 
(p. 95, 1. 34— p. 97, 1. 6). 
I. The influence of the example of America (p. 97, 1. 7). 

I. It proves that free government may be safe and 
just (p. 97, 11. 13-19). 
II. If we fail, free government will perish from the 
earth (p. 97, 1. 20— p. 98, 1. 2). 
III. Free government may be as permanent as any 
other (p. 98, 11. 3-13). 

CONCLUSION. 

The duty of America is to preserve what the fathers won 
and to increase the spirit of union. 

This analysis shows that Webster is in complete con- 
trol of his material ; he divides it as he will, for the sub- 
ject and the occasion do not rigidly prescribe what points 
he shall take up. There is no logical proposition to 
impose requirements upon him in the matter of division, 
subdivision, and proof. To be sure we may reduce the 
whole address to the form of a syllogism if we wish : 

Major Premise. All true patriots who have made sac- 
rifices that their country might furnish to the world 
an illustrious example of freedom, good government and 
prosperity, should be gratefully honored by their coun- 
trymen. 



INTRODUCTION 27 

Minor Premise. The heroes of the American Revo- 
lution have made sacrifices that their country might, etc. 

Conclusion. The heroes of the American Eevolution 
-should be gratefully honored by their countrymen. 
Nothing is gained, however, by applying this strict 
logical test to an address the chief aim of which is not 
to prove a proposition, but to deepen feeling and to 
increase appreciation. To treat it as we treat an argu- 
mentative discourse is to reduce it to a string of plati- 
tudes, and to miss all that gives it distinction. 

It is to be noted, however, that while Webster is free 
to select what topics he wishes, we find no waywardness 
or eccentricity in the selection. The topics are emi- 
nently appropriate to the subject and the occasion ; each 
is distinct from the others; each follows the preceding 
topic naturally. As we pass from one to the next we 
are made to feel their relationship. In some cases it 
is a relationship of similarity or contrast ; the apostrophe 
to the survivors (C) suggests the tribute to the patriotic 
dead (D) and this in turn suggests the address to the 
living (E). In other cases it is a relationship of cause 
and effect; the eulogy of LaFayette (Gr) follows as a 
natural effect of the facts cited just before under (F) ; 
the apostrophe to the survivors (C) is the natural effect 
of the recital of the mighty events referred to under 
(B) ; the improvement in the world (H) is the effect 
of the diffusion of knowledge and community of ideas 
(H-I) ; the difference between the Eevolution in Amer- 
ica and in Europe (H-II) is accounted for by a recital 
of causes (H-II a-b). In still other cases it is a rela- 
tionship neither of similarity and contrast nor of cause 
and effect, but ideas follow one another because they are 
felt to be in contiguity, that is near to one another, 



28 INTRODUCTION 

either near in time, as in the narrative portions, or near 
in thought. The influence of world opinion upon ar- 
bitrary governments (H-III) is near in thought to the 
preceding topic, the desire for popular government 
everywhere; the case of Greece suggests the case of the 
states of South America (IV). Thus it is easy to ac- 
count for the position of each topic in the discussion 
and to find a reason why it is where we find it. 

We notice also the use of climax in the arrangement 
of the divisions. The first climax is reached at p. 78, 1. 
29 ; the second at p. 83, 1. 23 ; the third at the close of the 
eulogy of La Fayette, p. 89, 1. 7; the fourth at p. 95, 
1. 33; the last in the conclusion of the speech. The 
general arrangement is in accordance with the usual 
principles of cause and effect, similarity and contrast, 
and contiguity. 

(2) The second element that may enter into the body 
of a discourse is definition. When this term is used 
most people think only of the kind of definition that is 
found in the dictionaries, a single sentence giving the 
meaning of a term in other words that are likely to 
be better understood, a sentence that puts the thing 
to be defined into its proper genus or class and then 
gives its difference from the other members of the 
class. This kind of formal definition is almost always 
necessary in argumentative discourse, especially in de- 
bate. Before a proposition is discussed its terms must 
be understood. 

But the word definition has a much wider meaning. 
It means all those processes of explanation, illustration, 
and example that set the limits of an idea. Lincoln's 
letter to Greeley is definitive of Lincoln's policy; it sets 
the limits of that policy and tells both what it includes 
and what it does not include. Definition may be inci- 



INTRODUCTION 29 

dental and may appear in a discourse wherever it is 
needed, or it may be the main object of a discourse and 
may dictate the method of dealing with the whole sub- 
ject. The general method involved in a definitive dis- 
course is the method of inquiry or the inductive method. 
(3) Narration, description, or exposition may 
also enter into a discourse. Each, like the ele- 
ment of definition, may be found on a very re- 
stricted scale, in one place in the discourse, or 
may be scattered through the discourse, appearing 
wherever it is needed; and, like the element of defini- 
tion, each may be merely incidental or may dominate the 
whole discourse and determine its method. Older writ- 
ers conceived of the narration as a separate and distinct 
part of the discourse, immediately following the exor- 
dium, or introduction, and immediately preceding the 
formal statement of the partition or division. They 
thought of it as a preliminary recital of facts or events 
which must be understood before proof and refutation 
could be profitably presented. When the facts or events 
were well known, the narration was to be omitted. The 
narration, when expressed, was to be persuasive; it was 
to foreshadow the proof and prepare the way for it, but 
was not to pretend to be proof itself. In modern public 
address we find this procedure still common and neces- 
sary in argumentative discourse, especially in debate; 
only here, in most cases, the narration would be more 
accurately called the description or the exposition, for 
it both recites facts and explains them. If the proposi- 
tion refers to the past, some historical narrative will 
be unavoidable, early in the discussion. A present day 
proposition also may require preliminary narration, de- 
scription, and exposition. Thus the proposition, "The 
present British ministry should be sustained in making 



30 INTEODUCTIOK 

the taxation of land values a part of its 1909 budget," 
would certainly require a preliminary description of 
the economic conditions in England that make new 
sources of revenue necessary, a historical narrative show- 
ing what have been the customary sources of revenue in 
the past, a definition of the term "taxation of land 
values," and an exposition of certain principles of taxa- 
tion. In the words of the older writers on rhetoric and 
oratory, "The present state of the question must be made 
clear by narration and exposition." The second para- 
graph of - Webster's Bunker Hill oration performs a 
function analagous to that of the narration in an argu- 
mentative discourse ; but in most expository addresses the 
narration is not concentrated in one part of the discourse. 
In sermons the place of the narration is supplied by 
the scripture reading that precedes. In sermons of the 
traditional type there was usually, in addition to this, 
an explanation of doctrine, definitive in character, just 
before the partition was announced. 

What is a single feature of one address may be the 
entire substance of another: some addresses are essen- 
tially all narration, description, or exposition. The 
eulogy, for example, may be in its fundamental struc- 
ture a narration. Superimposed upon this narration 
there will be a mass of description and exposition, the 
purpose of which is character interpretation. The bio- 
graphical sketch preceding an appreciation of character 
is narration and description combined. If interpreted 
as standing in the relation of cause and effect to 
the work and influence of the life, it precisely 
fulfills the function of the narration in an argumenta- 
tive discourse.* In most expository addresses, however, 
narration, description, definition, and explanation are 
*See also p. 138. 



INTBODUCTION 31 

scattered through the discourse. Thus in Webster's 
Bunker Hill address, the narrative is not all given in 
the second paragraph; after the first climax there are 
two pages of narrative (p. 78, 1. 30 — p.' 80, 1. 18) that 
furnish the basis of the address to the survivors. On 
p. 83, 1. 24 begins another section of the narration 
covering more than three pages, leading up to the ad- 
dress to LaFayette. Indeed, after every one of Web- 
ster's climaxes the discourse is resumed on the narra- 
tive plane. 

But the chief use of the narrative and descriptive 
parts of an expository address is to furnish the neces- 
sary amplification of the principal ideas of the dis- 
course. Typical means of amplification are necessarily 
resorted to in every expository discourse. One of these 
is repetition of an idea in other words. This is espe- 
cially necessary when the idea is not liked, or is 
somewhat difficult of apprehension, or, being essential, 
is to be made emphatic. Instances abound in Wash- 
ington's Farewell Address. A case in point is the 
passage on page 43, lines 2 to 18. The idea of respect 
for the Federal Government is repeated in almost 
every sentence ; and from line 19 to line 34, on page 43, 
the repetition is made by presenting the contrary of this 
idea, by dwelling upon the things that mean disrespect 
for the government. 

Another of the means of amplification is enumeration. 
After declaring that every portion of our country has 
motives to guard the Union of the whole, Washington 
enumerates in one paragraph (p. 39, 1. 30) the special 
motives that should act upon the North, the South, the 
East, and the West. A third means of amplification 
is the use of example. Washington refers (p. 42, 11. 9 
to 20) to the treaty with Spain and to that with Eng- 



32 INTRODUCTION 

land as examples of the nation-wide and non-sectional 
policy of the general government. The relative amount 
of amplification devoted to different ideas indicates their 
relative importance. 

(4) A fourth element that may enter into the body 
of an address is proof and refutation. In an argumen- 
tative discourse it is naturally the chief element. But 
it may enter into a discourse of the expository type as 
an ancillary or subsidiary element. Thus in Washing- 
ton's Farewell Address the section on "the baneful 
effects of the spirit of party" (p. 45, 1. 6— p. 46, 1. 23) 
is clearly argumentative. Party spirit should be re- 
pressed in a republic because (a) it means a revengeful 
despotism of the victorious faction over the defeated 
faction, (b) the despotism of factions alternately in 
power leads to intolerable disorders and miseries, (c) 
and these may incline men finally to seek security by 
setting up an individual despot, (d) even though it 
does not go so far as this, it enfeebles the public admin- 
istration, (e) foments insurrection, and (f) opens the 
door to foreign interference. This also illustrates the 
kind of proof called the chain of reasoning from cause 
to effect. 

Another kind of proof is the specific instance. The 
specific instances of disorder, insurrection, govern- 
mental embarrassment, foreign interference sup- 
ported by domestic faction, were too recent to require 
mention: they were matters of common knowledge. 
The appeal to common knowledge or to universal ex- 
experience is often offered in this way as a substitute for 
specific instances. One form of this appeal is the 
proverb and the maxim. 

Instead of, or in addition to, the specific instances 
cited or the common knowledge appealed to, reference 
may be made to the testimony of individuals or to the 



INTBODUCTION 33 

authority of books or of experts. It is usually necessary 
in employing this argument — the argument from au- 
thority — to show that the authority quoted is competent 
to speak to the point in issue, is disinterested and un- 
prejudiced and entirely worthy of confidence. The argu- 
ment derived from what we know of human nature, 
which Washington employs repeatedly in the Farewell 
Address, is a common form of the argument from cause 
to effect. 

The order in which arguments shall be arranged must 
be determined anew for every address. Each address 
has its own logic, its own natural order, and the re- 
quirements of coherence are supreme. The advice is 
often given, not to place a weak argument first; but 
there is really no good place for a weak argument; a 
weak argument will not knowingly be used at all if a 
speaker discovers its weakness in time. The subject 
itself, the form of statement which the proposition 
takes, will always suggest some logical order for the ar- 
gument, and this order will in general be the best and 
the most economical. But this order may be modified 
to meet the state of mind of the audience. It is well, 
for instance, to begin with an argument with which 
people are familiar; rather than with one that has 
been developed by research. It is well to begin with 
an argument that can be dealt with briefly, conclusively 
and simply, rather than with one that requires nicety 
of distinction and extended reasoning. It is well to 
close with the* argument that the speaker himself values 
most. But all of these suggestions must give way 
in favor of logic and coherence. 

The work of refutation is as important as the work 
of affirmation or direct proof. It consists not merely 
in replying to arguments that have actually been ad- 



34 INTBODTJCTION 

vanced, but also in considering unspoken objections that 
naturally suggest themselves. An argument is refuted 
either by disproving the fact on which it is based, or 
by disproving the inference that has been drawn from 
the fact. When the fact is admitted to be true and the 
inference drawn from it is true in part, and false in part, 
the refutation is effected by pointing out the distinction 
as Washington does (p. 46, 11. 9-23) in admitting the 
advantage of party spirit in a monarchy but denying its 
advantage in a republic. It does not follow (non 
sequitur), he says, that because party spirit is useful in 
Europe, it should be encouraged in America. 

3. The Conclusion. One purpose of the conclusion is 
to sum up in brief the whole matter that has been dis- 
cussed. In an argumentative discourse the summary 
will often be bare and formal, recalling in order the 
points argued in the discussion. In an expository dis- 
course the summary will not be made as an exact repeti- 
tion, but will be presented with some variation and ad- 
dition. Another purpose of the conclusion is to afford 
opportunity for a final appeal to the feelings. Here, if 
anywhere, the audience is prepared to receive such an 
appeal. The conclusion of Lincoln's First Inaugural 
(pp. 113-114) is highly persuasive partly on account of 
the introduction of the prophetic element and the ele- 
ment of faith in the supremacy of man's better impulses. 
An apt quotation often does this work most effectively. 
The conclusion should be brief and direct. It should be 
closely related in thought and spirit to the thought and 
spirit of the whole discourse. 




FAREWELL ADDRESS 



GEORGE WASHINGTON" 



Friends and Fellow Citizens — The period for a 
new election of a citizen, to administer the executive 
government of the United States, being not far dis- 
tant, and the time actually arrived, when your thoughts 

5 must be employed in designating the person who is to 
be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me 
proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct 
expression of the public voice, that I should now apprize 
you of the resolution I have formed, to decline being 

10 considered among the number of those, out of whom a 
choice is to be made. 

I beg you, at the same time, to do me the justice to 
be assured, that this resolution has not been taken 
without a strict regard to all the considerations apper- 

15 taining to the relation, which binds a dutiful citizen 
to his country; and that, in withdrawing the tender 
of service, which silence in my situation might imply, 
I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your 
future interest; no deficiency of grateful respect for 

20 your past kindness ; but am supported by a full convic- 
tion that the step is compatible with both. 

The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the 
office to which your suffrages have twice called me, have 
been a uniform sacrifice of inclination to the opinion 

25 of duty, and to a deference for what appeared to be 
your desire. I constantly hoped, that it would have 

35 



36 WASHINGTON, WEBSTER, LINCOLN 

been much earlier in my power, consistently with mo- 
tives, which I was not at liberty to disregard, to return 
to that retirement, from which I had been reluctantly 
drawn. The strength of my inclination to do this, 
previous to the last election, had even led to the prepara- 5 
tion of an address to declare it to you; but mature 
reflection on the then perplexed and critical posture of 
our affairs with foreign nations, and the unanimous 
advice of persons entitled to my confidence, impelled* 
me to abandon the idea. 10 

I rejoice, that the state of your concerns, external as 
well as internal, no longer renders the pursuit of in- 
clination incompatible with the sentiment of duty, or 
propriety; and am persuaded, whatever partiality may 
be retained for my services, that, in the present circum- 15 
stances of our country, you will not disapprove my 
determination to retire. 

The impressions, with which I first undertook the 
arduous trust, were explained on the proper occasion. 
In the discharge of this trust, I will only say, that 1 20 
have, with good intentions, contributed towards the 
organization and administration of the government the 
best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was 
capable. Not unconscious in the outset, of the inferi- 
ority of my qualifications, experience in my own eyes, 25 
perhaps still more in the eyes of others, has strength- 
ened the motives to diffidence of myself, and every day 
the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and 
more, that the shade of retirement is as necessary to 
me as it will be welcome. Satisfied, that, if any cir- 30 
cumstances have given peculiar value to my services, 
they were temporary, I have the consolation to believe, 
that, while choice and prudence invite me to quit the 
political scene, patriotism does not forbid it. 



FAEEWELL ADDRESS 37 

In looking forward to the moment, which is intended 
to terminate the career of my public life, my feelings 
do not permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgment 
of that debt of gratitude, which I owe to my beloved 

5 country for the many honors it has conferred upon me ; 
still more for the steadfast confidence with which it has 
supported me; and for the opportunities I have thence 
enjoyed of manifesting my inviolable attachment, by 
services faithful and persevering, though in usefulness 

10 unequal to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our 
country from these services, let it always be remembered 
to your praise, and as an instructive example in our 
annals, that under circumstances in which the pas- 
sions, agitated in every direction, were liable to mis- 

15 lead, amidst appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes 
of fortune often discouraging, in situations in which 
not unfrequently want of success has countenanced the 
spirit of criticism, the constancy of your support was 
the essential prop of the efforts, and a guarantee of the 

20 plans by which they were effected. Profoundly pene- 
trated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my 
grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that 
Heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its 
beneficence ; that your union and brotherly affection may 

25 be perpetual, that the free constitution, which is the 
work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained, that 
its administration in every department may be stamped 
with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness 
of the people of these states, under the auspices of lib- 

30 erty, may be made complete, by so careful a preserva- 
tion and so prudent a use of this blessing, as will acquire 
to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, 
the affection, and adoption of every nation, which is 
yet a stranger to it. 



38 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEE, LINCOLN 

Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for 
your welfare, which cannot end but with my life, and 
the apprehension of danger, natural to that solicitude, 
urge me, on an occasion like the present, to offer to 
your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your 5 
frequent review, some sentiments, which are the result 
of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and 
which appear to me all-important to the permanency of 
your felicity as a people. These will be offered to you 
with the more freedom, as you can only see in them 10 
the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can 
possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel. 
Nor can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your indul- 
gent reception of my sentiments on a former and not 
dissimilar occasion. 15 

Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every liga- 
ment of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is 
necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment. 

The unity of government, which constitutes you one 
people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is 20 
a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, 
the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace 
abroad, of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very 
liberty, which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to 
foresee, that, from different causes and from different 25 
quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices em- 
ployed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this 
truth; as this is the point in your political fortress 
against which the batteries of internal and external 
enemies will be most constantly and actively (though 30 
often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite 
moment that you should properly estimate the immense 
value of your national union to your collective and 
individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial^ 



FABEWELL ADDRESS 39 

habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming 
yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium 
of your political safety and prosperity ; watching for its 
preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing 

5 whatever may suggest even a suspicion, that it can in 
any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning 
upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate 

. any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble 
the sacred ties which now link together the various 

10 parts. 

For this you have every inducement of sympathy and 
interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common 
country, that country has a right to concentrate your 
affections. The name of American, which belongs to 

15 you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the 
just pride of patriotism, more than any appellation de- 
rived from local discriminations. With slight shades of 
difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, 
and political principles. You have in a common cause 

20 fought and triumphed together; the independence and 
liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and 
joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings, and suc- 
cesses. 

But these considerations, however powerfully they 

25 address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly out- 
weighed by those which apply more immediately to your 
interest. Here every portion of our country finds the 
most commanding motives for carefully guarding and 
preserving the union of the whole. 

30 The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the 
South, protected by the equal laws of a common govern- 
ment, finds in the productions of the latter, great addi- 
tional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise 
and precious materials of manufacturing industry. The 



40 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEK, LINCOLN 

South, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the agency 
of the North, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce 
expand. Turning partly into its own channels the 
seamen of the North, it finds its particular navigation 
invigorated ; and, while it contributes, in different ways, 5 
to nourish and increase the general mass of the national 
navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a mari- 
time strength, to which itself is unequally adapted. The 
East, in a like intercpurse with the West, already finds, 
and in the progressive improvement of interior commu- 10 
nications by land and water, will more and more find, 
a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings 
from abroad, or manufactures at home. The West de- 
rives from the East supplies requisite to its growth and 
comfQrt, and, what is perhaps of still greater conse- 15 
quence, it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment 
of indispensable outlets for its own productions to the 
weight, influence, and the future maritime strength of 
the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an indis- 
soluble community of interest as one nation. Any other 20 
tenure by which the West can hold this essential advan- 
tage, whether derived from its own separate strength, 
or from an apostate and unnatural connexion with any 
foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious. 

While, then, every part of our country thus feels an 25 
immediate and particular interest in union, all the parts 
combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of 
means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, 
proportionably greater security from external danger, a 
less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign 30 
nations; and, what is of inestimable value, they must 
derive from union an exemption from those broils and 
wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict 
neighboring countries not tied together by the same 



FAEEWELL ADDEESS 41 

governments, which their own rivalships alone would be 
sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alli- 
ances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and 
embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity 
5 of those overgrown military establishments, which, 
under any form of government, are inauspicious to 
liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly 
hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is, that 
your union ought to be considered as a main prop of 

10 your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to 
endear to you the preservation of the other. 

These considerations speak a persuasive language to 
every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the 
continuance of the Union as a primary object of patri- 

15 otic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common gov- 
ernment can embrace so large a sphere ? Let experience 
solve it. To listen to mere speculation in such a case 
were criminal. We are authorized to hope, that a proper 
organization of the whole, with the auxiliary agency of 

20 governments for the respective subdivisions, will afford 
a happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a 
fair and full experiment. With such powerful and 
obvious motives to union, affecting all parts of our 
country, while experience shall not have demonstrated 

25 its impracticability, there will always be reason to dis- 
trust the patriotism of those, who in any quarter may 
endeavor to weaken its bands. 

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our 
Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern, that any 

30 ground should have been furnished for characterizing 
parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and 
Southern, Atlantic and Western ; whence designing men 
may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real dif- 
ference of local interests and views. One of the, expe- 



42 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEE, LINCOLN 

dients of party to acquire influence, within particular 
districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of 
other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much 
against the jealousies and heart-burnings, which spring 
from these misrepresentations ; they tend to render alien 5 
to each other those, who ought to be bound together by 
fraternal affection. The inhabitants of our western 
country have lately had a useful lesson on this head; 
they have seen, in the negotiation by the Executive, and 
in the unanimous ratification by the Senate, of the 10 
treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at 
that event, throughout the United States, a decisive 
proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated 
among them of a policy in the General Government and 
in the Atlantic States unfriendly to their interests in 15 
regard to the Mississippi; they have been witnesses to 
the formation of two treaties, that with Great Britain, 
and that with Spain, which secure to them every thing 
they could desire, in respect to our foreign relations, 
towards confirming their prosperity. Will it not be 20 
their wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advan- 
tages on the Union by which they were procured ? Will 
they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if such 
there are, who would sever them from their brethren 
and connect them with aliens? 25 

To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a 
Government for the whole is indispensable. No alli- 
ances, however strict, between the parts can be an ade- 
quate substitute; they must inevitably experience the 
infractions and interruptions, which all alliances in all 30 
times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous 
truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the 
adoption of a Constitution of Government better calcu- 
lated than your former for an intimate Union, and for 



FAEEWELL ADDEESS 43 

the efficacious management of your common concerns. 
This Government, the offspring of our own choice, unin- 
fluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation 
and mature deliberation, completely free in its princi- 
5 pies, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security 
with energy, and containing within itself a provision 
for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confi- 
dence and your support. Respect for its authority, com- 
pliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are 

10 duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true 
Liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right 
of the people to make and to alter their constitutions 
of government. But the constitution which at any time 
exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of 

15 the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The 
very idea of the power and the right of the people to 
establish Government presupposes the duty of every indi- 
vidual to obey the established Government. 
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all com- 

20 binations and associations, under whatever plausible 
character, with the real design to direct, control, coun- 
teract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of 
the constituted authorities, are destructive of this funda- 
mental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to 

25 organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordi- 
nary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of 
the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful 
and enterprising minority of the community; and, 
according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, 

30 to make the public administration the mirror of the ill- 
concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather 
than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans 
digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual 
interests, 



44 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEK, LINCOLN 

However combinations or associations of the above 
description may now and then answer popular ends, they 
are likely, in the course of time and things, to become 
potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and un- 
principled men will be enabled to subvert the power of 5 
the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of 
government; destroying afterwards the very engines 
which have lifted them to unjust dominion. 

Towards the preservation of your government, and 
the permanency of your present happy state, it is requi- 10 
site, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular 
oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that 
you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its 
principles, however specious the pretexts. One method 
of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the constitu- 15 
tion, alterations, which will impair the energy of the 
system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly 
overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be 
invited, remember that time and habit are at least as 
necessary to fix the true character of governments, as 20 
of other human institutions; that experience is the 
surest standard, by which to test the real tendency of 
the existing constitution of a country; that facility in 
changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, 
exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety 25 
of hypothesis and opinion; and remember, especially, 
that, for the efficient management of your common in- 
terests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government 
of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect 
security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will 30 
find in such a government, with powers properly dis- 
tributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, 
little else than a name, where the government is too 
feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine 



FAREWELL ADDRESS 45 

each member of the society within the limits prescribed 
by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and 

__tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property. 
I have already intimated to you the danger of parties 

5 in the state, with particular reference to the founding 
of them on geographical discriminations. Let me 
now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in 
the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of 
the spirit of party, generally. 

.0 This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our 
nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the 
human mind. It exists under different shapes in all 
governments, more or less stifled, controlled,, or re- 
pressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in 

.5 its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy. 

The alternate domination of one faction over another, 

sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party 

dissension, which in different ages and countries has 

perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a fright- 

10 ful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal 
and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, 
which result, gradually incline the minds of men to 
seek security and repose in the absolute power of an 
individual; and sooner or later the chief of some pre- 

!5 vailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his 
competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of 
his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty. 

Without looking forward to an extremity of this 
kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out 

50 of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the 
spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and 
duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. 

It serves always to distract the public councils, and 
enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the 



46 WASHINGTON, WEBSTER, LINCOLN 

community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; 
kindles the animosity of one part against another, 
foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens 
the door to foreign influence and corruption, which 
find a facilitated access to the government itself through 5 
the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the 
will of one country are subjected to the policy and will 
of another. 

There is an opinion, that parties in free countries 
are useful checks upon the administration of the govern- 10 
ment, and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This 
within certain limits is probably true; and in govern- 
ments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with 
indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. 
But in those of the popular character, in governments 15 
purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From 
their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be 
enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And, 
there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought 
to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage 20 
it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform 
vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, in- 
stead of warming, it should consume. 

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking 
in a free country should inspire caution, in those in- 25 
trusted with its administration, to confine themselves 
within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding 
in the exercise of the powers of one department to 
encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment 
tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments 30 
in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of govern- 
ment, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of 
power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates 
in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the 



FAREWELL ADDRESS 47 

truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks 
in the exercise of political power, by dividing and dis- 
tributing it into different depositories, and constituting 
each the guardian of the public weal against invasions 

5 by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient 
and modern; some of them in our country and under 
our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary 
as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, 
the distribution or modification of the constitutional 

10 powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected 
by an amendment in the way which the constitution 
designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; 
for,. though this, in one instance, may be the instrument 
of good, it is the customary weapon by which free gov- 

15 ernments are destroyed. The precedent must always 
greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or 
transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield. 

Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to 
political prosperity, religion and morality are indis- 

20 pensable supports. In vain would that man claim the 
tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these 
great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of 
the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, 
equally with the pious man, ought to respect and cherish 

25 them. A volume could not trace all their connexions 
with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, 
Where is the security for property, for reputation, for 
life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, 
which are the instruments of investigation in courts of 

30 justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposi- 
tion, that morality can be maintained without religion. 
Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined 
education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and 
experience both forbid us to expect, that national 



48 WASHINGTON, WEBSTER, LINCOLN 

morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. 

It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a 
necessary spring of popular government. The rule, in- 
deed, extends with more or less force to every species 
of free government. Who, that is a sincere friend to it, 5 
can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the 
foundation of the fabric? 

Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, 
institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In 
proportion as the structure of a government gives force 10 
to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion 
should be enlightened. 

As a very important source of strength and security, 
cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is, 
to use it as sparingly as possible ; avoiding occasions of 15 
expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that 
timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently 
prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoid- 
ing likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shun- 
ning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in 20 
time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidable 
wars may have occasioned not ungenerously throwing 
upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to 
bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your 
representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion 25 
should co-operate. To facilitate to them the perform- 
ance of their duty, it is essential that you should prac- 
tically bear in mind, that towards the payment of debts 
there must be revenue ; that to have revenue there must 
be taxes ; that no taxes can be devised which are not 30 
more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the 
intrinsic embarrassment, inseparable from the selection 
of the proper objects (which is always a choice of diffi- 
culties), ought to be a decisive motive for a candid con- 



FAEEWELL ADDEESS 49 

struction of the conduct of the government in making 
it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for 
obtaining revenue, which the public exigencies may at 
any time dictate. 

5 Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; 
cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and 
morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good 
policy does not equally enjoin it ? It will be worthy of 
a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great 

10 nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too 
novel example of a people always guided by an exalted 
justice and benevolence. Who can doubt, that in the 
course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan 
would richly repay any temporary advantages, which 

15 might be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be 
that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity 
of a nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, 
is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles 
human nature. Alas ! is it rendered impossible by its 

20 vices ? 

In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essen- 
tial, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against 
particular nations, and passionate, attachments for 
others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, 

25 just and amicable feelings towards all should be culti- 
vated. The nation, which indulges towards another an 
habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some 
degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its 
affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray 

so from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation 
against another disposes each more readily to offer insult 
and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, 
and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or 
trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent col- 



50 WASHINGTON, WEBSTER, LINCOLN 

lisions, obstinate/ envenomed, and bloody 'contests. The 
nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes 
impels to war the Government, contrary to the best cal- 
culations of policy. The Government sometimes partici- 
pates in the national propensity, and adopts through 5 
passion what reason would reject; at other times, it 
makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects 
of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other 
sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, some- 
times perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the victim. 10 

So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation 
for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for 
the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imag- 
inary common interest in cases where no real common 
interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of 15 
the other, betrays the former into a participation in the 
quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate in- 
ducement or justification. It leads also to concessions 
to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, 
which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the 20 
concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought 
to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, 
and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom 
equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ^ambi- 
tious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote them- 25 
selves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacri- 
fice the interests of their own country, without odium, 
sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the ap- 
pearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commend- 
able deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for 30 
public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambi- 
tion, corruption or infatuation. 

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, 
such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly 



FAEEWELL ADDRESS 51 

enlightened and independent patriot. How many op- 
portunities do they afford to tamper with domestic fac- 
tions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public 
opinion, to influence or awe the public councils ! Such 
5 an attachment of a small or weak, towards a great and 
powerful nation, dooms the former to be the satellite 
of the latter. 

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I 
conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens), the jealousy 

10 of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since- his^ 
tory and experience prove that foreign influence-^ one 
of the most baneful foes of republican government. But 
that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it 
becomes the instrument of the very influence to be 

15 avoided, instead of a defence against it. Excessive par- 
tiality for one foreign nation, and excessive dislike of 
another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger 
only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the 
arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may 

20 resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become 
suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp 
the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender 
their interests. 

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign 

25 nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to 

have with them as little political connexion as possible. 

So far as we have already formed engagements, let them 

be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. 

Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us 

30 have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must 
be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of 
which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, 
therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, 
by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her 



52 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEB, LINCOLN 

politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of 
her friendships or enmities. 

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables 
us to pursue a different course. If we remain one peo- 
ple, under an efficient government, the period is not far 5 
off when we may defy material injury from external an- 
noyance; when we may take such an attitude as will 
cause the neutrality, we may at any time resolve upon, 
to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, 
under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, 10 
will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when 
we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by 
justice, shall counsel. 

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation ? 
Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground ? Why, 15 
by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of 
Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils 
of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or 
caprice ? 

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alii- 20 
ances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I 
mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not 
be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to 
existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less appli- 
cable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is 25 
always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those 
engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, 
in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise 
to extend them. 

Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable 30 
establishments, on a respectable defensive posture, we 
may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraor- 
dinary emergencies. 

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are 



FAEEWELL ADDKESS 53 

recommended by policy, humanit}^ and interest. But 
even our commercial policy should hold an equal and 
impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive 
favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of 

5 things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the 
streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing, 
with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable 
course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to 
enable the government to support them, conventional 

10 rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances 
and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and 
liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as 
experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly 
keeping in view, that it is folly in one nation to look 

15 for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay 
with a portion of its independence for whatever it may 
accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it 
may place itself in the condition of having given equival- 
ents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached 

20 with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no 
greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors 
from nation to nation. It is an illusion, which experi- 
ence must cure, which a just pride ought to discard. 
In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of 

25 an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will 
make the strong and lasting impression I could wish ; 
that they will control the usual current of the passions, 
or prevent our nation from running the course, which 
has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I 

30 may even flatter myself, that they may be productive of 
some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they 
may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party 
spirit, to w r arn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, 
to guard against the impostures of pretended patriot- 



54 WASHINGTON, WEBSTER, LINCOLN 

ism; this hope will be a full recompense for the solici- 
tude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated. 

How far in the discharge of my official duties, I have 
been guided by the principles which have been de- 
lineated, the public records and other evidences of my 5 
conduct must witness to you and to the world. To my- 
self, the assurance of my own conscience is, that I have 
at least believed myself to be guided by them. 

In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe, my 
proclamation of the 22d of April, 1793, is the index of 10 
my plan. Sanctioned by your approving voice, and by 
that of your Eepresentatives in both Houses of Congress, 
the spirit of that measure has continually governed me, 
uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me 
from it. 15 

After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best 
lights I could obtain, I was well satisfied that our coun- 
try, under all the circumstances of the case, had a right 
to take, and was bound in duty and interest to take, a 
neutral position. Having taken it, I determined, as far 20 
as should depend upon me, to maintain it, with modera- 
tion, perseverance and firmness. 

The considerations which respect the right to hold 
this conduct, it is not necessary on this occasion to de- 
tail. I will only observe, that, according to my under- 25 
standing of the matter, that right, so far from being 
denied by any of the belligerent powers, has been virtu- 
ally admitted by all. 

The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be in- 
ferred, without any thing more, from the obligation 30 
which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in 
cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the 
relations of peace and amity towards other nations. 

The inducements of interest for observing that con- 



FAREWELL ADDRESS 55 

duct will best be referred to your own reflections and 
experience. With, me a predominant motive has been 
to endeavor to gain time to our country to settle and 
mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress with- 

5 out interruption to that degree of strength and consist- 
ency, which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, 
the command of its own fortunes. 

Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administra- 
tion, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am never- 

10 theless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable 
that I may have committed many errors. Whatever 
they may be I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert 
or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall 
also carry with me the hope, that my country will never 

15 cease to view them with indulgence ; and that, after 
forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with 
an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will 
be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the 
mansions of rest. 

20 Eelying on its kindness in this as in other things, and 
actuated by that fervent love towards it, which is so 
natural to a man, who views in it the native soil of him- 
self and his progenitors for several generations ; I antici- 
pate with pleasing expectation that retreat, in which I 

25 promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoy- 
ment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, 
the benign influence of good laws under a free govern- 
ment, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the 
happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, 

30 and dangers. 

George Washington. 
United States, September Ytth, 1796. 



THE CHAEACTEE OF WASHINGTON 

DANIEL WEBSTER 

A speech delivered at a public dinner in the City of Wash- 
ington, February 22, 1832, the centennial anniversary of Wash- 
ington's birth. 

We are met to testify our regard for him whose name 
is intimately blended with whatever belongs most essen- 
tially to the prosperity, the liberty, the free institutions, 
and the renown of our country. That name was of 
power to rally a nation, in the hour of thick-thronging 5 
public disasters and calamities; that name shone, amid 
the storm of war, a beacon light, to cheer and guide the 
country's friends ; it flamed, too, like a meteor, to repel 
her foes. That name, in the days of peace, was a load- 
stone, attracting to itself a whole people's confidence, a 10 
whole people's love, and the whole world's respect. That 
name, descending with all time, spreading over the 
whole earth, and uttered in all the languages belonging 
to the tribes and races of men, will forever be pro- 
nounced with affectionate gratitude by every one in 15 
whose breast there shall arise an aspiration for human 
rights and human liberty. 

We perform this grateful duty, Gentlemen, at the ex- 
piration of a hundred years from his birth, near the 
place, so cherished and beloved by him, where his dust 20 
now reposes, and in the capital which bears his own 
immortal name. 

All experience evinces that human sentiments are 
strongly influenced by associations. The recurrence of 

56 



CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON 57 

anniversaries, or of longer periods of time, naturally 
freshens the recollection, and deepens the impression, of 
events with which they are historically connected. Be- 
no wned places, also, have a power to awaken feeling, 
5 which all acknowledge. No American can pass by the 
fields of Bunker Hill, Monmouth, and Camden, as if 
they were ordinary spots on the earth's surface. Who- 
ever visits them feels the sentiment of love of country 
kindling anew, as if the spirit that belonged to the trans- 
it) actions which have rendered these places distinguished 
still hovered round, with power to move and excite all 
who in future time may approach them. 

But neither of these sources of emotion equals the 
power with which great moral examples affect the mind. 
15 When sublime virtues cease to be abstractions, when 
they become embodied in human character, and exempli- 
fied in human conduct, we should be false to our own 
nature if we did not indulge in the spontaneous effu- 
sions of our gratitude and our admiration. A true 
20 lover of the virtue of patriotism delights to contemplate 
its purest models ; and that love of country may be well 
suspected which affects to soar so high into the regions 
of sentiment as to be lost and absorbed in the abstract 
feeling, and becomes too elevated or too refined to glow 
25 with fervor in the commendation or the love of individ- 
ual benefactors. All this is unnatural. It is as if one 
should be so enthusiastic a lover of poetry as to care 
nothing for Homer or Milton; so passionately attached 
to eloquence as to be indifferent to Tully and Chat- 
30 ham ; or such a devotee to the arts, in such an ecstasy 
with the elements of beauty, proportion, and expression, 
as to regard the masterpieces of Raphael and Michael 
Angelo with coldness or contempt. We may be assured, 
Gentlemen, that he who really loves the thing itself, 



58 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEK, LINCOLN 

loves its finest exhibitions. A true friend of his coun- 
try loves her friends and benefactors, and thinks it no 
degradation to commend and commemorate them. The 
voluntary outpouring of the public feeling, made to-day, 
from the north to the south, and from the east to the 5 
west, proves this sentiment to be both just and natural. 
In the cities and in the villages, in the public temples 
and in the family circles, among all ages and sexes, 
gladdened voices to-day bespeak grateful hearts and a 
freshened recollection of the virtues of the Father of his 10 
Country. And it will be so, in all time to come, so 
long as public virtue is itself an object of regard. The 
ingenuous youth of America will hold up to themselves 
the bright model of Washington's example, and study 
to be what they behold ; they will contemplate his char- li 
acter till all its virtues spread out and display them- 
selves to their delighted vision; as the earliest astrono 
mers, the shepherds on the plains of Babylon, gazed at 
the stars till they saw them form into clusters and con- 
stellations, overpowering at length the eyes of the 20 
beholders with the united blaze of a thousand lights. 

Gentlemen, we are at a point of a century from the 
birth of Washington; and what a century it has been! 
During its course, the human mind has seemed to pro- 
ceed with a sort of geometric velocity, accomplishing for 25 
human intelligence and human freedom more than had 
been done in fives or tens of centuries preceding. Wash- 
ington stands at the commencement of a new era, as 
well as at the head of the New World. A century from 
the birth of Washington has changed the world. The 30 
country of Washington has been the theatre on which a 
great part of that change has been wrought, and Wash- 
ington himself a principal agent by which it has been 



CHAKACTEE OF WASHINGTON 59 

accomplished. His age and his country are equally full 
of wonders ; and of both he is the chief. 

If the poetical prediction, uttered a few years before 
his birth, be true ; if indeed it be designed by Providence 
5 that the grandest exhibition of human character and 
human affairs shall be made on this theatre of the West- 
ern world; if it be true that, 

"The four first acts already past; 
A fifth shall close the drama with the day ; 
10 Time's noblest offspring is the last"; 

how could this imposing, swelling, final scene be appro- 
priately opened, how could its intense interest be ade- 
quately sustained, but by the introduction of just such a 
character as our Washington? 

15 Washington had attained his manhood when that 
spark of liberty was struck out in his own country 
which has since kindled into a flame and shot its beams 
over the earth. In the flow of a century from his birth, 
the world has changed in science, in arts, in the extent 

20 of commerce, in the improvement of navigation, and in 
all that relates to the civilization of man. But it is 
the spirit of human freedom, the new elevation of 
individual man, in his moral, social, and political char- 
acter, leading the whole long train of other improve- 

25 ments, which has most remarkably distinguished the era. 
Society, in this century, has not made its progress, like 
Chinese skill, by a greater acuteness of ingenuity in 
trifles; it has not merely lashed itself to an increased 
speed round the old circles of thought and action ; but it 

30 has assumed a new character ; it has raised itself from 

. beneath governments to a participation in governments ; 

it has mixed moral and political objects with the daily 

pursuits of individual men; and, with a freedom and 



(30 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEK, LINCOLN 

strength before altogether unknown, it has applied to 
these objects the whole power of the human understand- 
ing. It has been the era, in short, when the social prin- 
ciple has triumphed over the feudal principle; when 
society has maintained its rights against military power, 5 
and established, on foundations never hereafter to be 
shaken, its competency to govern itself. 

It was the extraordinary fortune of Washington, that, 
having been intrusted, in revolutionary times, with the 
supreme military command, and having fulfilled that 10 
trust with equal renown for wisdom and for valor, he 
should be placed at the head of the first government in 
which an attempt was to be made on a large scale to 
rear the fabric of social order on the basis of a written 
constitution and of a pure representative principle. A 15 
government was to be established, without a throne, 
without an aristocracy, without castes, orders, or privi- 
leges; and this government, instead of being a democ- 
racy existing and acting within the walls of a single 
city, was to be extended over a vast country of different 20 
climates, interests, and habits, and of various commun- 
ions of our common Christian faith. The experiment 
certainly was entirely new. A popular government of 
this extent, it was evident, could be framed only by 
carrying into full effect the principle of representation 25 
or of delegated power ; and the world was to see whether 
society could, by the strength of this principle, maintain 
its own peace and good government, carry forward its 
own great interests, and conduct itself to political re- 
nown and glory. By the benignity of Providence, this 30 
experiment, so full of interest to us and to our posterity 
forever, so full of interest, indeed, to the world in its 
present generation and in all its generations to come, 
was suffered to commence under the guidance of Wash- 



CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON 61 

ington. Destined for this high career, he was fitted for 
it by wisdom, by virtue, by patriotism, by discretion, by 
whatever can inspire confidence in man toward man. 
In entering on the untried scenes, early disappointment 

5 and the premature extinction of all hope of success 
would have been certain, had it not been that there did 
exist throughout the country, in a most extraordinary 
degree, an unwavering trust in him who stood at the 
helm. 

10 I remarked, Gentlemen, that the whole world was and 
is interested in the result of this experiment. And is it 
not so? Do we deceive ourselves, or is it true that at 
this moment the career which this government is run- 
ning is among the most attractive objects to the civilized 

15 world ? Do we deceive ourselves, or is it true that at 
this moment that love of liberty and that understanding 
of its true principles which are flying over the whole 
earth, as on the wings of all the winds, are really and 
truly of American origin ? 

20 At the period of the birth of Washington there existed 
in Europe no political liberty in large communities, ex- 
cept in the provinces of Holland, and except that Eng- 
land herself had set a great example, so far as it went, 
by her glorious Revolution of 1688. Everywhere else, 

25 despotic power was predominant, and the feudal or mili- 
tary principle held the mass of mankind in hopeless 
bondage. One-half of Europe was crushed beneath the 
Bourbon sceptre, and no conception of political liberty, 
no hope even of religious toleration, existed among that 

3D nation which was America's first ally. The king was 
the state, the king was the country, the king was all. 
There was one king, with power not derived from his 
people, and too high to be questioned ; and the rest were 
all subjects, with no political right but obedience. All 



62 WASHINGTON, WEBSTER, LINCOLN 

above was intangible power, all below quiet subjection. 
A recent occurrence in the French chamber shows us 
how public opinion on these subjects is changed. A 
minister had spoken of the "king's subjects." "There 
are no subjects," exclaimed hundreds of voices at once, 5 
"in a country where the people make the king!" 

Gentlemen, the spirit of human liberty and of free 
government, nurtured and grown into strength and 
beauty in America, has stretched its course into the 
midst of the nations. Like an emanation from Heaven, 10 
it has gone forth, and it will not return void. It must 
change, it is fast changing, the face of the earth. Our 
great, our high duty is to show, in our own example, 
that this spirit is a spirit of health as well as a spirit of 
power ; that its benignity is as great as its strength ; 15 
that its efficiency to secure individual rights, social rela- 
tions, and moral order, is equal to the irresistible force 
with which it prostrates principalities and powers. The 
world, at this moment, is regarding us with a willing, 
but something of a fearful admiration. Its deep and 20 
awful anxiety is to learn whether free States may be 
stable, as well as free; whether popular power may be 
trusted, as well as feared; in short, whether wise, regu- 
lar, and virtuous self-government is a vision for the 
contemplation of theorists, or a truth established, illus- 25 
trated, and brought into practice in the country of 
Washington. 

Gentlemen, for the earth which we inhabit, and the 
whole circle of the sun, for all the unborn races of man- 
kind, we seem to hold in our hands, for their weal or 30 
woe, the fate of this experiment. If we fail, who shall 
venture the repetition? If our example shall prove to 
be one not of encouragement, but of terror, not fit to be 
imitated, but fit only to be shunned, where else shall 



CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON 63 

the world look for free models? If this great Western 
Sun be struck out of the firmament;, at what other foun- 
tain shall the lamp of liberty hereafter be lighted? 
What other orb shall emit a ray to glimmer, even, on 

5 the darkness of the world ? 

There is no danger of our overrating or overstating 
the important part which we are now acting in human 
affairs. It should not flatter our personal self-respect, 
but it should reanimate our patriotic virtues, and inspire 

10 us with a deeper and more solemn sense both of our 
privileges and of our duties We cannot wish better 
for our country, nor for the world, than that the same 
spirit which influenced Washington may influence all 
who succeed him; and that the same blessing from 

15 above, which attended his efforts, may also attend theirs. 
The principles of Washington's administration are 
not left doubtful. They are to be found in the Consti- 
tution itself, in the great measures recommended and 
approved by him, in his speeches to Congress, and in 

20 that most interesting paper, his Farewell Address to the 
people of the United States. The success of the govern- 
ment under his administration is the highest proof of 
the soundness of these principles. And, after an experi- 
ence of thirty-five years, what is there which an enemy 

25 could condemn ? What is there which either his 
friends, or the friends of the country, could wish to have 
been otherwise? I speak, of course, of great measures 
and leading principles. 

In the first place, all his measures were right in their 

30 intent. He stated the whole basis of his own great 
character, when he told the country, in the homely 
phrase of the proverb, that honesty is the best policy. 
One of the most striking things ever said of him is, that 
"he changed mankind's ideas of political greatness/' 



54 WASHINGTON, WEBSTER, LINCOLN 

To commanding talents, and to success, the common ele- 
ments of such greatness, he added a disregard of self, 
a spotlessness of motive, a steady submission to every 
public and private duty, which threw far into the shade 
the whole crowd of vulgar great. The object of his 5 
regard was the whole country. No part of it was 
enough to fill his enlarged patriotism. His love of 
glory, so far as that may be supposed to have influenced 
him at all, spurned everything short of general appro- 
bation. It would have been nothing to him that his 10 
partisans or his favorites outnumbered, or outvoted, or 
outmanaged, or outclamored, those of other leaders. He 
had no favorites; he rejected all partisanship; and, act- 
ing honestly for the universal good, he deserved, what 
he has so richly enjoyed, the universal love. 15 

His principle it was to act right, and to trust the 
people for support; his principle it was not to follow 
the lead of sinister and selfish ends, nor to rely on the 
little arts of party delusion to obtain public sanction for 
such a course. Born for his country and for the world, 20 
he did not give up to party what was meant for man- 
kind. The consequence is, that his fame is as durable 
as his principles, as lasting as truth and virtue them- 
selves. While the hundreds whom party excitement, 
and temporary circumstances, and casual combinations, 25 
have raised into transient notoriety, sink again, like thin 
bubbles, bursting and dissolving into the great ocean, 
Washington's fame is like the rock which bounds that 
ocean, and at whose feet its billows are destined to 
break harmlessly forever. 30 

The maxims upon which Washington conducted our 
foreign relations were few and simple. The first was an 
entire and indisputable impartiality towards foreign 
States. He adhered to this rule of public conduct, 



CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON 65 

against very strong inducements to depart from it, and 
when the ^popularity of the moment seemed to favor such 
a departure. In the next place, he maintained true 
dignity and unsullied honor in all communications with 

5 foreign States. It was among the high duties devolved 
upon him to introduce our new government into the 
circle of civilized States and powerful nations. Not 
arrogant or assuming, with no unbecoming or super- 
cilious bearing, he yet exacted for it from all others 

10 entire and punctilious respect. He demanded, and he 
obtained at once, a standing of perfect equality for his 
country in the society of nations ; nor was there a prince 
or potentate of his day, whose personal character carried 
with it, into the intercourse of other States, a greater 

15 degree of respect and veneration. 

He regarded other nations only as they stood in politi- 
cal relations to us. With their internal affairs, their 
political parties and dissensions, he scrupulously 
abstained from all interference ; and, on the other hand, 

20 he repelled with spirit all such interference by others 
with us or our concerns. His sternest rebuke, the most 
indignant measure of his whole administration, was 
aimed against such an attempted interference. He felt 
it as an attempt to wound the national honor, and r**- 

25 sented it accordingly. 

The reiterated admonitions in his Farewell Addre^. 
show his deep fears that foreign influence would insinu- 
ate itself into our counsels through the channels of 
domestic dissension, and obtain a sympathy with our 

30 own temporary parties. Against all such dangers he 
most earnestly entreats the country to guard itself. He 
appeals to its patriotism, to its self-respect, to its own 
honor, to every consideration connected with its welfare 
and happiness, to resist, at the very beginning, all ten- 



6(3 WASHINGTON, WEBSTER, LINCOLN 

dencies towards such connection of foreign interests 
with our own affairs. With a tone of earnestness no- 
where else found, even in his last affectionate farewell 
advice to his countrymen, he says, "Against the insidious 
wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me, 5 
fellow-citizens,) the jealousy of a free people ought to 
be constantly awake; since history and experience prove 
that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of 
republican government." 

Lastly, on the subject of foreign relations, Washing- 10 
ton never forgot that we had interests peculiar to our- 
selves. The primary political concerns of Europe, he 
saw, did not affect us. We had nothing to do with her 
balance of power, her family compacts, or her succes- 
sions to thrones. We were placed in a condition favor- 15 
able to neutrality during European wars, and to the 
enjoyment of all the great advantages of that relation. 
"Why, then/' he asks us, "why forego the advantages of 
so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand 
upon foreign ground ? Why, by interweaving our des- 20 
tiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace 
and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rival- 
ship, interest, humor, or caprice?" 

Indeed, Gentlemen, Washington's Farewell Address is 
full of truths important at all times, and particularly 25 
deserving consideration at the present. With a sagacity 
which brought the future before him, and made it like 
the present, he saw and pointed out the dangers that 
even at this moment most imminently threaten us. I 
hardly know how a greater service of that kind could 30 
now be done to the community, than. by a. renewed and 
wide diffusion of that admirable paper, and an earnest 
invitation to every man in the country to reperuse and 
consider it. Its political maxims are invaluable; its 



CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON 67 

exhortations to love of country and to brotherly affec- 
tion among citizens/ touching; and the solemnity with 
which it urges the observance of moral duties, and im- 
presses the power of religious obligation, gives to it the 

5 highest character of truly disinterested, sincere, parental 
advice. 

The domestic policy of Washington found its pole- 
star in the avowed objects of the Constitution itself. 
He sought so to administer that Constitution as to form 

10 a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic 
tranquillity, provide for the common defence, prqmote 
the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty. 
These were objects interesting, in the highest degree, to 
the whole country, and his policy embraced the whole 

15 country. 

Among his earliest and most important duties was 
the organization of the government itself, the choice of 
his confidential advisers, and the various appointments 
to office. This duty, so important and delicate, when a 

20 whole government was to be organized, and all its offices 
for the first time filled, was yet not difficult to him, for 
he had no sinister ends to accomplish, no clamorous 
partisans to gratify, no pledges to redeem, no object to 
be regarded but simply the public good. It was a plain, 

25 straightforward matter, a mere honest choice of good 
men for the public service. 

His own singleness of purpose, his disinterested patri- 
otism, were evinced by the selection of his first cabinet, 
and by the manner in which he filled the seats of justice, 

30 and other places of high trust. He sought for men fit 
for offices ; not for offices which might suit men. Above 
personal considerations, above local considerations, above 
party considerations, he felt that he could only dis- 
charge the sacred trust which the country had placed in 



68 WASHINGTON, WEBSTER, LINCOLN 

his hands, hy a diligent inquiry after real merit, and a 
conscientious preference of virtue and talent. The 
whole country was the field of his selection. He ex- 
plored that whole field, looking only for whatever it con- 
tained most worthy and distinguished. He was, indeed, 5 
most successful, and he deserved success for the purity 
of his motives, the liberality of his sentiments, and his 
enlarged and manly policy. 

Washington's administration established the national 
credit, made provision for the public debt, and for that 10 
patriotic army whose interests and welfare were always 
so dear to him; and, by laws wisely framed, and of 
admirable effect, raised the commerce and navigation of 
the country, almost at once, from depression and ruin 
to a state of prosperity. Nor were his eyes open to 15 
these interests alone. He viewed with equal concern its 
agriculture and manufactures, and, so far as they came 
within the regular exercise of the powers of this govern- 
ment, they experienced regard and favor. 

It should not be omitted, even in this slight reference 2 o 
to the general measures and general principles of the 
first President, that he saw and felt the full value and 
importance of the judicial department of the govern- 
ment. An upright and able administration of the laws 
he held to be alike indispensable to private happiness 25 
and public liberty. The temple of justice, in his opin- 
ion, was a sacred place, and he would profane and pollute 
it who should call any to minister in it, not spotless in 
character, not incorruptible in integrity, not competent 
by talent and learning, not a fit object of unhesitating 30 
trust. 

Among other admonitions, Washington has left us, in 
his last communication to his country, an exhortation 
against the excesses of party spirit. A fire not to be 



CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON 69 

quenched, he yet conjures us not to fan and feed the 
flame. Undoubtedly, Gentlemen, it is the greatest dan- 
ger of our system • and of our time. Undoubtedly, if 
that system should be overthrown, it will be the work of 
5 excessive party spirit, acting on the government, which 
is dangerous enough, or acting in the government, which 
is a thousand times more dangerous; for government 
then becomes nothing but organized party, and, in the 
strange vicissitudes of human affairs, it may come at 

10 last, perhaps, to exhibit the singular paradox of govern- 
ment itself being in opposition to its own powers, at war 
with the very elements of its own existence. Such cases 
are hopeless. As men may be protected against murder, 
but cannot be guarded against suicide, so government 

15 may be shielded from the assaults of external foes, but 
nothing can save it when it chooses to lay violent hands 
on itself. 

Finally, Gentlemen, there was in the breast of Wash- 
ington one sentiment so deeply felt, so constantly upper- 

20 most, that no proper occasion escaped without its utter- 
ance. From the letter which he signed in behalf of the 
Convention when the Constitution was sent out to the 
people, to the moment when he put his hand to that last 
paper in which he addressed his countrymen, the Union, 

25 — the Union was the great object of his thoughts. In 
that first letter he tells them that to him and his 
brethren of the Convention, union appears to be the 
greatest interest of every true American; and in that 
last paper he conjures them to regard that unity of gov- 

30 ernment which constitutes them one people as the very 
palladium of their prosperity and safety, and the secur- 
ity of liberty itself. He regarded the union of these 
States less as one of our blessings, than as the great 
treasure-house which contained them all. Here, in his 



70 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEK, LINCOLN 

judgment, was the great magazine of all our means of 
prosperity ; here, as he thought, and as every true Ameri- 
can still thinks, are deposited all our animating pros- 
pects, all our solid hopes for future greatness. He has 
taught us to maintain this union, not by seeking to 5 
enlarge the powers of the government, on the one hand, 
nor by surrendering them, on the other; but by an 
administration of them at once firm and moderate, pur- 
suing objects truly national, and carried on in a spirit 
of justice and equity. K 

The extreme solicitude for the preservation of the 
Union, at all times manifested by him, shows not only 
the opinion he entertained of its importance, but his 
clear perception of those causes which were likely to 
spring up to endanger it, and which, if once they should 15 
overthrow the present system, would leave little hope of 
any future beneficial reunion. Of all the presumptions 
indulged by presumptuous man, that is one of the rash- 
est which looks for repeated and favorable opportuni- 
ties for the deliberate establishment of a united govern- 2c 
ment over distinct and widely extended communities. 
Such a thing has happened once in human affairs, and 
but once ; the event stands out as a prominent exception 
to all ordinary history; and unless we suppose ourselves 
running into an age of miracles, we may not expect its 25 
repetition. 

Washington, therefore, could regard, and did regard, 
nothing as of paramount political interest but the in- 
tegrity of the Union itself. With a united government, 
well administered, he saw that we had nothing to fear; 30 
and without it, nothing to hope. The sentiment is just, 
and its momentous truth should solemnly impress the 
whole country. If we might regard our country as per- 
sonated in the spirit of Washington, if we might con- 



CHAEACTEE OF WASHINGTON 71 

sider him as representing her, in her past renown, her 
present prosperity, and her future career, and as in that 
character demanding of us all to account for our con- 
duct, as political men or as private citizens, how should 
5 he answer him who has ventured to talk of disunion and 
dismemberment? Or how should he answer him who 
dwells perpetually on. local interests, and fans every 
kindling flame of local prejudice? How should he 
answer him who would array State against State, inter- 

10 est against interest, and party against party, careless of 
the continuance of that unity of government which con- 
stitutes us one people ? 

The political prosperity which this country has at- 
tained, and which it now enjoys, has been acquired 

15 mainly through the instrumentality of the present gov- 
ernment. While this agent continues, the capacity of 
attaining to still higher degrees of prosperity exists also. 
We have, while this lasts, a political life capable of 
beneficial exertion, with power to resist or overcome 

20 misfortunes, to sustain us against the ordinary accidents 
of human affairs, and to promote, by active efforts, every 
public interest. But dismemberment strikes at the very 
being which preserves these faculties. It would lay its 
rude and ruthless hand on this great agent itself. It 

25 would sweep away, not only what we possess, but all 
power of regaining lost, or acquiring new possessions. 
It would leave the country not only bereft of its pros- 
perity and happiness, but without limbs, or organs, or 
faculties, by which to exert itself hereafter in the pur- 

30 suit of that prosperity and happiness. 

Other misfortunes may be borne, or their effects over- 
come. If disastrous war should sweep our commerce 
from the ocean, another generation may renew it; if it 
exhaust our treasury, future industry may replenish it; 



72 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEK, LINCOLN 

if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still, under a new 
cultivation, they will grow green again, and ripen to 
future harvests. It were but a trifle even if the walls 
of yonder Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty pillars 
should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all covered 5 
by the dust of the valley. All these might be rebuilt. 
But who shall reconstruct the fabric of demolished gov- 
ernment? Who shall rear again the well-proportioned 
columns of constitutional liberty? Who shall frame 
together the skilful architecture which unites national 10 
sovereignty with State rights, individual security, and 
public prosperity? No, if these columns fall, they will 
be raised not again. Like the Coliseum and the Par- 
thenon, they will be destined to a mournful, a melan- 
choly immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will flow 15 
over them than were ever shed over the monuments of 
Eoman or Grecian art; for they will be the remnants of 
a more glorious edifice than Greece or Home ever saw, 
the edifice of constitutional American liberty. 

But let us hope for betters things. Let us trust in 20 
that gracious Being who had hitherto held our country 
as in the hollow of his hand. Let us trust to the virtue 
and the intelligence of the people, and to the efficacy 
of religious obligation. Let us trust to the influence of 
Washington's example. Let us hope that that fear of 25 
Heaven which expels all other fear, and that regard to 
duty which transcends all other regard, may influence 
public men and private citizens, and lead our country 
still onward in her happy career. Full of these gratify- 
ing anticipations and hopes, let us look forward to the so 
end of that century which is now commenced. A hun- 
dred years hence, other disciples of Washington will 
celebrate his birth, with no less of sincere admiration 
than we now commemorate it. When they shall meet, 



CHAKACTEE OF WASHINGTON 73 

as we now meet, to do themselves and him that honor, 
so surely as they shall see the blue summits of his native 
mountains rise in the horizon, so surely as they shall 
behold the river on whose banks he lived, and on whose 
banks he rests, still flowing on toward the sea, so surely 
may they see, as we now see, the flag of the Union float- 
ing on the top of the Capitol; and then, as now, may 
the sun in his course visit no land more free, more 
happy, more lovely, than this our own country ! 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 

DANIEL WEBSTER 

An address delivered at the laying of the corner-stone at 
Charlestown, Massachusetts, June 17, 1825. 

This uncounted multitude before me and around me 
proves the feeling which the occasion has excited. These 
thousands of human faces, glowing with sympathy and 
joy, and from the impulses of a common gratitude 
turned reverently to heaven in this spacious temple of 5 
the firmament, proclaim that the day, the place, and the 
purpose of our assembling have made a deep impression 
on our hearts. 

If, indeed, there be anything in local association fit 
to affect the mind of man, we need not strive to repress 10 
the emotions which agitate us here. We are among the 
sepulchres of our fathers. We are on ground distin- 
guished by their valor, their constancy, and the shed- 
ding of their blood. We are here, not to fix an uncer- 
tain date in our annals, nor to draw into notice an 15 
obscure and unknown spot. If our humble purpose had 
never been conceived, if we ourselves had never been 
born, the 17th of June, 1775, would have been a day on 
which all subsequent history would have poured its light, 
and the eminence where we stand a point of attraction 20 
to the eyes of successive generations. But we are Ameri- 
cans. We live in what may be called the early age of 
this great continent; and we know that our posterity, 
through all time, are here to enjoy and suffer the allot- 
ments of humanity. We see before us a probable train 25 

74 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 75 

of great events; we know that our own fortunes have 
been happily cast; and it is natural, therefore, that we 
should be moved by the contemplation of occurrences 
which have guided our destiny before many of us were 
5 born, and settled the condition in which we should pass 
that portion of our existence which God allows to men 
on earth. 

We do not read even of the discovery of this continent, 
without feeling something of a personal interest in the 

10 event; without being reminded how much it has affected 
our own foi tunes and our own existence. It would be 
still more unnatural for us, therefore, than for others, 
to contemplate with unaffected minds that interesting, I 
may say that most touching and -pathetic scene, when 

15 the great discoverer of America stood on the deck of 
his shattered bark, the shades of night falling on the 
sea, yet no man sleeping; tossed on the billows of an 
unknown ocean, yet the stronger billows of alternate 
hope and despair tossing his own troubled thoughts ; ex- 

20 tending forward his harassed frame, straining westward 
his anxious and eager eyes, till Heaven at last granted 
him a moment of rapture and ecstasy, in blessing his 
vision with the sight of the unknown world. 

Nearer to our times, more closely connected with our 

25 fates, and therefore still more interesting to our feelings 
and affections, is the settlement of our own country by 
colonists from England. We cherish every memorial of 
these worthy ancestors ; we celebrate their patience and 
fortitude; we admire their daring enterprise; we teach 

30 our children to venerate their piety ; and we are justly 
proud of being descended from men who have set the 
world an example of founding civil institutions on the 
great and united principles of human freedom and 
human knowledge. To us, their children, the story of 



7g WASHINGTON, WEBSTEE, LINCOLN 

their labors and sufferings can never be without its inter- 
est. We shall not stand unmoved on the shore of Plym- 
outh, while the sea continues to wash it; nor will our 
brethren in another early and ancient colony forget the 
place of its first establishment, till their river shall cease 5 
to flow by it. No vigor of youth, no maturity of man- 
hood, will lead the nation to forget the spots where its 
infancy was cradled and defended. 

But the great event in the history of the continent, 
which we are now met here to commemorate, that 10 
prodigy of modern times, at once the wonder and the 
blessing of the world, is the American Eevolution. In 
a day of extraordinary prosperity and happiness, of high 
national honor, distinction, and power, we are brought 
together, in this place, by our love of country, by our 15 
admiration of exalted character, by our gratitude for 
signal services and patriotic devotion. 

The Society whose organ I am was formed for the 
purpose of rearing some honorable and durable monu- 
ment to the memory of the early friends of American 20 
Independence. They have thought that for this object 
no time could be more propitious than the present pros- 
perous and peaceful period, that no place could claim 
preference over this memorable spot, and that no day 
could be more auspicious to the undertaking than the 25 
anniversary of the battle which was here fought. The 
foundation of that monument we have now laid. With 
solemnities suited to the occasion, with prayers to 
Almighty God for his blessing, and in the midst of this 
cloud of witnesses, we have begun the work. We trust 30 
it will be prosecuted, and that, springing from a broad, 
foundation, rising high in massive solidity and un-. 
adorned grandeur, it may remain as long as Heaven per- 
mits the works of man to last, a fit emblem, both of the 



. THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT ?* 

events in memory of which it is raised, and of the grati- 
tude of those who have reared it. 

We know, indeed, that the record of illustrious 
actions is most safely deposited in the universal remem- 

5 brance of mankind. We know that if we could cause 
this structure to ascend, not only till it reached the 
skies, but till it pierced them, its broad surfaces could 
still contain but part of that which, in an age of knowl- 
edge, hath already been spread over the earth, and 

10 which history charges itself with making known to all 
future times. We know that no inscription on entabla- 
tures less broad than the earth itself can carry informa- 
tion of the events we commemorate where it has not 
already gone; and that no structure which shall not 

15 outlive the duration of letters and knowledge among 
men can prolong the memorial. But our object is, 
by this edifice, to show our own deep sense of the value 
and importance of the achievements of our ancestors; 
and, by presenting this work of gratitude to the eye, 

20 to keep alive similar sentiments, and to foster a con- 
stant regard for the principles of the Eevolution. 
Human beings are composed, not of reason only, but 
of imagination also, and sentiment; and that is neither 
wasted nor misapplied which is appropriated to the 

25 purpose of giving right direction to sentiments, and 
opening proper springs of feeling in the heart. 

Let it not be supposed that our object is to per- 
petuate national hostility, or even to cherish a mere 
military spirit. It is higher, 'purer, nobler. We con- 

30 secrate our work to the spirit of national independence, 
and we wish that the light of peace may rest upon it 
forever. We rear a memorial of our conviction of that 
unmeasured benefit which has been conferred on our 
own land, and of the happy influences which have been 



f g WASHINGTON, WEBSTER, LINCOLN 

produced, by the same events, on the general interests 
of mankind. We come, as Americans, to mark a spot 
which must forever be dear to us and our posterity. 
We wish that whosoever, in all coming time, shall turn 
his eye hither, may behold that the place is not undis- 5 
tinguished where the first great battle of the Eevolu- 
tion was fought. We wish that this structure may 
proclaim the magnitude and importance of that event 
to every class and every age. We wish that infancy 
may learn the purpose of its erection from maternal 10 
lips, and that weary and withered age may behold it, 
and be solaced by the recollections which it suggests. 
We wish that labor may look up here, and be proud 
in the midst of its toil. We wish that, in those days 
of disaster which, as they come upon all nations, must 15 
be expected to come upon us also, desponding patriot- 
ism may turn its eyes hitherward, and be assured 
that the foundations of our national power are 
still strong. We wish that this column, rising towards 
heaven among the pointed spires of so many temples 20 
dedicated to God, may contribute also to produce, in 
all minds, a pious feeling of dependence and gratitude. 
We wish, finally, that the last object to the sight of 
him who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden 
his who revisits it, may be something which shall re- 25 
mind him of the liberty and the glory of his country. 
Let it rise ! let it rise, till it meet the sun in his 
coming; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, 
and parting day linger and play on its summit. ■>/ 

We live in a most extraordinary age. Events so eo 
various and so important that they might crowd and 
distinguish centuries are, in our times, compressed 
within the compass of a single life. When has it 
happened that history has had so much to record, in 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 79 

the same term of years, as since the 17th of June, 
1775? Our own revolution, which, under other cir- 
cumstances, might itself have been expected to occa- 
sion a war of half a century, has been achieved; 

5 twenty-four sovereign and independent States erected; 
and a general government established over them, so 
safe, so wise, so free, so practical, that we might well 
wonder its establishment should have been accom- 
plished so soon, were it not far the greater wonder 

10 that it should have been established at all. Two or 
three millions of people have been augmented to 
twelve, the great forests of the West prostrated be- 
neath the arm of successful industry, and the dwellers 
on the banks of the Ohio and the Mississippi become 

15 the fellow-citizens and neighbors of those who culti- 
vate the hills of New England. We have a commerce 
that leaves no sea unexplored; navies which take no 
law from superior force; revenues adequate to all the 
exigencies of government, almost without taxation; 

20 and peace with all nations, founded on equal rights 
and mutual respect. -*• 

Europe, within the same period, has been agitated 
by a mighty revolution, which, while it has been felt 
in the individual condition and happiness of almost 

25 every man, has shaken to the centre her political fab- 
Tic, and dashed against one another thrones which 
had stood tranquil for ages. On this, our continent, 
our own example has been followed, and colonies have 
sprung up to be nations. Unaccustomed sounds of 

30 liberty and free government have reached us from be- 
yond the track of the sun; and at this moment the 
dominion of European power in this continent, from 
the place where we stand to the south pole, is annihi- 
lated for ever. 



80 WASHINGTON, WEBSTER, LINCOLN 

In the mean time, both in Europe and America, 
such has been the general progress of knowledge, such 
the improvement in legislation, in commerce, in the 
arts, in letters, and, above all, in liberal ideas and the 
general spirit of the age, that the whole world seems 5 
changed. 

Yet, notwithstanding that this is but a faint ab- 
stract of the things which have happened since the day 
of the battle of Bunker Hill, we are but fifty years 
removed from it; and we now stand here to enjoy all 10 
the blessings of our own condition, and to look abroad 
on the brightened prospects of the world, while 
we still have among us some of those who were 
active agents in the scenes of 1775, and who are now 
here, from every quarter of New England, to visit 15 
once more, and under circumstances so affecting, I had 
almost said so overwhelming, this renowned theatre of 
their courage and patriotism. 

Venerable men ! you have come down to us from a 
former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened 20 
out your lives, that you might behold this joyous day. 
You are now where you stood fifty years ago, this very 
hour, with your brothers, and your neighbors, shoulder 
to shoulder, in the strife for your country. Behold, 
how altered ! The same heavens are indeed over your 25 
heads; the same ocean rolls at your feet; but all else 
how changed ! You hear now no roar of hostile can- 
non, you see no mixed volumes of smoke and flame 
rising from burning Charlestown. The ground strewed 
with the dead and dying ; the impetuous charge ; the 30 
steady and successful repulse; the loud call to repeated 
assault ; the summoning of all that is inanly to repeated 
resistance; a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly 
sared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 81 

in war and death, — all these you have witnessed, but 
you witness them no more. All is peace. The heights 
of yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs, which you 
then saw filled with wives and children and countrymen 
in distress and terror, and looking with unutterable 5 
emotions for the issue of the combat, have presented 
you to-day with the sight of its whole happy population 
come out to welcome and greet you with a universal 
jubilee. Yonder proud ships, by a felicity of position 
appropriately lying at the foot of this mount, and 10 
seeming fondly to cling around it, are not means of 
annoyance to you, but your country's own means of dis- 
tinction and defence. All is peace ; and God has granted 
you this sight of your country's happiness, ere you 
slumber in the grave. He has allowed you to behold 15 
and to partake the reward of your patriotic toils; and 
he has allowed us, your sons and countrymen, to meet 
you here, and in the name of the present generation, in 
the name of your country, in the name of liberty, to 
thank you ! 20 

But, alas ! you are not all here ! Time and the sword 
have thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, 
Brooks, Bead, Porneroy, Bridge! our eyes seek for you 
in vain amid this broken band. You are gathered to 
your fathers, and live only to your country in her 25 
grateful remembrance and your own bright example. 
But let us not too much grieve that you have met the 
common fate of men. You lived at least long enough 
to know that your work had been nobly and successfully 
accomplished. You lived to see your country's inde- 30 
pendence established, and to sheathe your swords from 
war. - On the light of Liberty you saw arise the light 
of Peace, like 

11 another morn, 
Risen on mid-noon ; ' ' 35 



82 WASHINGTON, WEBSTER, LINCOLN 

and the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless. 
But ah ! Him ! the first great martyr in this great 
cause ! Him ! the premature victim of his own self- 
devoting heart ! Him ! the head of our civil councils, 

5 and the destined leader of our military bands, whom 
nothing brought hither but the unquenchable fire of 
his own spirit ! Him ! cut off by Providence in the 
hour of overwhelming anxiety and thick gloom; falling 
ere he saw the star of his country rise; pouring out 

10 his generous blood like water, before he knew whether 
it would fertilize a land of freedom or of bondage ! — 
how shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the 
utterance of thy name ! Our poor work may perish ; 
but thine shall endure ! This monument may moulder 

15 away ; the solid ground it rests upon may sink down 
to a level with the sea ; but thy memory shall not fail ! 
Wheresoever among men a heart shall be found that 
beats to the transports of patriotism and liberty, its 
aspirations shall be claimed kindred with thy spirit ! 

20 But the scene amidst which we stand does not permit 
us to confine our thoughts or our sympathies to those 
fearless spirits who hazarded or lost their lives on this 
consecrated spot. We have the happiness to rejoice 
here in the presence of a most worthy representation of 
the survivors of the whole Revolutionary army. 

25 Veterans ! you are the remnant of many a well-fought 
field. You bring with you marks of honor from Tren- 
ton and Monmouth, from Yorktown, Camden, Benning- 
ton, and Saratoga. Veterans of half a century! when 
in your youthful days you put everything at hazard in 

30 your country's cause, good as that cause was, and san- 
guine as youth is, still your fondest hopes did not 
stretch onward to an hour like this ! At a period to 
which you could not reasonably have expected to arrive, 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 83 

at a moment of national prosperity such as you could 
never have foreseen, you are now met here to enjoy 
the fellowship of old soldiers, and to receive the over- 
flowings of a universal gratitude. 

5 But your agitated countenances and your heaving 
breasts inform me that even this is not an unmixed joy. 
I perceive that a tumult of contending feelings rushes 
upon you. The images of the dead, as well as the per- 
sons of the living, present themselves before you. The 

10 scene overwhelms you, and I turn from it. May the 
Father of all mercies smile upon your declining years, 
and bless them ! And when you shall here have ex- 
changed your embraces, when you shall once more have 
pressed the hands which have been so often extended to 

15 give succor in adversity, or grasped in the exultation of 
victory, then look abroad upon this lovely land which 
your young valor defended, and mark the happiness 
with which it is filled; yea, look abroad upon the whole 
earth, and see what a name you have contributed to 

20 give to your country, and what praise you have added 
to freedom, and then rejoice in the sympathy and grati- 
tude which beam upon your last days from the improved 
• condition of mankind! 

The occasion does not require of me any particular 

25 account of the battle of the 17th of June, 1775, nor 
any detailed narrative of the events which immedi- 
ately preceded it. These are familiarly known to all. 
In the progress of the great and interesting contro- 
versy, Massachusetts and the town of Boston had be- 

30 come early and marked objects of the displeasure of 
the British Parliament. This had been manifested 
in the act for altering the government of the Prov- 
ince, and in that for shutting up the port of Boston. 
Nothing sheds more honor on our early history, and 



84 WASHINGTON, WEBSTER, LINCOLN 

nothing better shows how little the feelings and sen- 
timents of the Colonies were known or regarded in 
England, than the impression which these measures 
everywhere produced in America. It had been antic- 
ipated, that while the Colonies in general would be 5 
terrified by the severity of the punishment inflicted 
on Massachusetts, the other seaports would be gov- 
erned by a mere spirit of gain; and that, as Boston 
was now cut off from all commerce, the unexpected 
advantage which this blow on her was calculated to 10 
confer on other towns would be greedily enjoyed. 
How miserably such reasoners deceived themselves ! 
How little they knew of the depth, and the strength, 
and the intenseness of that feeling of resistance to 
illegal acts of power, which possessed the whole Ameri- 15 
can people. Everywhere the unworthy boon was 
rejected with scorn. The fortunate occasion was 
seized, everywhere, to show to the whole world that 
the Colonies were swayed by no local interest, no par- 
tial interest, no selfish interest. The temptation to 20 
profit by the punishment of Boston was strongest to 
our neighbors of Salem. Yet Salem was precisely 
the place where this miserable proffer was spurned, 
in a tone of the most lofty self-respect and the most 
indignant patriotism. "We are deeply affected/' 25 
said its inhabitants, "with the sense of our public 
calamities; but the miseries that are now rapidly has- 
tening on our brethren in the capital of the Province 
greatly excite our commiseration. By shutting up the 
port of Boston some imagine that the course of trade 30 
might be turned hither and to our benefit; but we 
must be dead to every idea of justice, lost to all feel- 
ings of humanity, could we indulge a thought to seize 
on wealth and raise our fortunes on the ruin of our 



THE BUNKEB HILL MONUMENT 85 

suffering neighbors/' These noble sentiments were 
not confined to our immediate vicinity. In that day 
of general affection and brotherhood, the blow given 
to Boston smote on every patriotic heart from one 

5 end of the country to the other. Virginia and the 
Carolinas, as well as Connecticut and New Hampshire, 
felt and proclaimed the cause to be their own. The 
Continental Congress, then holding its first session in 
Philadelphia, expressed its sympathy for the suffering 

;o inhabitants of Boston, and addresses were received 
from all quarters, assuring them that the cause was a 
common one, and should be met by common efforts 
and common sacrifices. The Congress of Massachu- 
setts responded to these assurances; and in an address 

15 to the Congress at Philadelphia, bearing the official 
signature, perhaps among the last, of the immortal 
Warren, notwithstanding the severity of its suffering 
and the magnitude of the dangers which threatened it, 
it was declared that this Colony "is ready, at all times, 

20 to spend and to be spent in the cause of America." 
But the hour drew nigh which was to put profes- 
sions to the proof, and to determine whether the au- 
thors of these mutual pledges were ready to seal them 
in blood. The tidings of Lexington and Concord had 

25 no sooner spread, than it was universally felt that the 
time was at last come for action. A spirit pervaded 
all ranks, not transient, not boisterous, but deep, sol- 

- emn, determined, — 



"Totamque infusa per artus 
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corj 



se corpore miscet. tf 

War on their own soil and at their own doors, was, 
indeed, a strange work to the yeomanry of New Eng- 



86 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEK, LINCOLN 

land; but their consciences were convinced of its ne- 
cessity, their country called them to it, and they did 
not withhold themselves from the perilous trial. The 
ordinary occupations of life were abandoned ; the 
plough was stayed in the unfinished furrow ; wives 5 
gave up their husbands, and mothers gave up their 
sons, to the battles of a civil war. Death might come 
in honor, on the field; it might come, in disgrace, on 
the scaffold. For either or for both they were pre- 
pared. The sentiment of Quincy was full in their 10 
hearts. "Blandishments/' said that distinguished son 
of genius and patriotism, "will not fascinate us, nor 
will threats of a halter intimidate; for, under God, 
we are determined, that, whatsoever, whensoever, or 
howsoever, we shall be called to make our exit, we will 15 
die free men." 

The 17th of June saw the four New England Colo- 
nies standing here side by side, to triumph or to fall 
together; and there was with them from that moment 
to the end of the war, what I hope will remain with 20 
them for ever, — one cause, one country, one heart. 

The battle of Bunker Hill was attended with the 
most important effects beyond its immediate results as 
a military engagement. It created at once a state of 
open, public war. There could now be no longer a 25 
question of proceeding against individuals, as guilty 
of treason or rebellion. That fearful crisis was past. 
The appeal lay to the sword, and the only question 
was, whether the spirit and the resources of the people 
would hold out till the object should be accomplished. 30 
Nor were its general consequences confined to our own 
country. The previous proceedings of the Colonies, 
their appeals, resolutions, and addresses, had made 
their cause known to Europe. Without boasting, we 



THE BUNKEE HILL MONUMENT 87 

may say, that in no age or country has the public 
cause been maintained with more force of argument, 
more power of illustration, or more of that persuasion 
which excited feeling and elevated principle can alone 

r * bestow, than the Kevolutiociary state papers exhibit. 
These papers will forever deserve to be studied, not 
only for the spirit which they breathe, but for the 
ability with which they were written. 

To this able vindication of their cause, the Colonies 

10 had now added a practical and severe proof of their 
own true devotion to it, and given evidence also of the 
power which they could bring to its support. All now 
saw, that if America fell, she would not fall without a 
struggle. Men felt sympathy and regard, as well as 

15 surprise, when they beheid these infant states, remote, 
unknown, unaided, encounter the power of England, 
and, in the first considerable battle, leave more of their 
enemies dead on the field, in proportion to the number 
of combatants, than had been recently known to fall 

20 in the wars of Europe. 

Information of these events, circulating throughout 
the world, at length reached the ears of one who now 
hears me. He has not forgotten the emotion which 
the .fame of Bunker Hill, and the name of Warren,. 

25 excited in his youthful breast. 

Sir, we are assembled to commemorate the establish- 
ment of great public principles of liberty, and to do 
honor to the distinguished dead. The occasion is too 
severe for eulogy of the living. But, Sir, your inter- 

30 esting relation to this country, the peculiar circum- 
stances which surround you and surround us, call on 
me to express the happiness which we derive from your 
presence and aid in this solemn commemoration. 
Fortunate, fortunate man ! with what measure of de- 



88 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEK, LINCOLN 

votion will you not thank God for the circumstances 
of your extraordinary life ! You are connected with 
both hemispheres and with two generations. Heaven 
saw fit to ordain that the electric spark of liberty 
should be conducted, through you, from .the New 5 
World to the Old; and we, who are now here to per- 
form this duty of patriotism, have all of us long 
ago received it in charge from our fathers to cherish 
your name and your virtues. You will account it 
an instance of your good fortune, Sir, that you crossed 10 
the seas to visit us at a time which enables you to 
be present at this solemnity. You now behold the 
field, the renown of which reached you in the heart 
of France, and caused a thrill in your ardent bosom. 
You see the lines of the little redoubt thrown up by 15 
the incredible diligence of Prescott; defended, to the 
last extremity, by his lion-hearted valor; and within 
which the corner-stone of our monument has now taken 
its position. You see where Warren fell, and where 
Parker, Gardner, McCleary, Moore, and other early 20 
patriots, fell with him. Those who survived that day, 
and whose lives have been prolonged to the present 
hour, are now around you. Some of them you have 
known in the trying scenes of the war. Behold! they 
now stretch forth their feeble arms to embrace yon. 23 
Behold S they raise their trembling voices to invoke the 
blessing of God on you and yours forever. 

Sir, you have assisted us in laying the foundation of 
this structure. You have heard us rehearse, with our 
feeble commendation, the names of departed patriots. 30 
Monuments and eulogy belong to the dead. We give 
them this day to Warren and his associates. On other 
occasions they have been given to your more immediate 
companions in arms, to Washington, to Greene, to Gates, 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 89 

to Sullivan, and to Lincoln. We have become reluctant 
to grant these, our highest and last honors, further. 
We would gladly hold them yet back from the little 
remnant of that immortal band. Serus in ccelum redeas. 

5 Illustrious as are your merits, yet far, oh, very far dis- 
tant be the day when any inscription shall bear your 
name, or any tongue pronounce its eulogy ! 

The leading reflection to which this occasion seems to 
invite us respects the great changes which have hap- 

10 pened in the fifty years since the battle of Bunker 
Hill was fought. And it peculiarly marks the character 
of the present age, that, in looking at these changes, 
and in estimating their effect on our condition, we are 
obliged to consider, not what has been done in our 

15 own country only, but in others also. In these inter- 
esting times, while nations are making separate and 
individual advances in improvement, they make, too, a 
common progress; like vessels on a common tide, pro- 
pelled by the gales at different rates, according to their 

20 several structure and management, but all moved for- 
ward by one mighty current, strong enough to bear 
onward whatever does not sink beneath it. 

A chief distinction of the present day is a community 
of opinions and knowledge amongst men in different 

25 nations, existing in a degree heretofore unknown. 
Knowledge has, in our time, triumphed, and is tri- 
umphing, over distance, over difference of languages, 
over diversity of habits, over prejudice, and over big- 
otry. The civilized and Christian world is fast learning 

30 the great lesson, that difference of nation does not imply 
necessary hostility, and that all contact need not be war. 
The whole world is becoming a common field for intel- 
lect to act in. Energy of mind, genius, power, where- 
soever it exists, may speak out in any tongue, and the 



90 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEK, LINCOLN 

world will hear it. A great chord of sentiment and 
feeling runs through two continents, and vibrates over 
both. Every breeze wafts intelligence from country to 
country; every wave rolls it; all give it forth, and all 
in turn receive it. There is a vast commerce of ideas; 5 
there are marts and exchanges for intellectual discov- 
eries, and a wonderful fellowship of those individual 
intelligences which make up the mind and opinion of 
the age. Mind is the great lever of all things; human 
thought is the process by which human ends are ulti- 10 
mately answered; and the diffusion of knowledge, so 
astonishing in the last half-century, has rendered innu- 
merable minds, variously gifted by nature, competent 
to be competitors or fellow-workers on the theatre of 
intellectual operation. 15 

From these causes important improvements have 
taken place in the personal condition of individuals. 
Generally speaking, mankind are not only better fed 
and better clothed, but they are able also to enjoy 
more leisure; they possess more refinement and more 20 
self-respect. A superior tone of education, manners, 
and habits prevails. This remark, most true in its 
application to our own country, is also partly true 
when applied elsewhere. It is proved by the vastly 
augmented consumption of those articles of manufac- 25 
ture and of commerce which contribute to the comforts 
and the decencies of life; an augmentation which has 
far outrun the progress of population. And while the 
unexampled and almost incredible use of machinery 
would seem to supply the place of labor, labor still 30 
finds its occupation and its reward ; so wisely has 
Providence adjusted men's wants and desires to their 
condition and their capacity. 

Any adequate survey, however, of the progress made 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 91 

during the last half-century in the polite and the me- 
chanic arts, in machinery and manufactures, in com- 
merce and agriculture, in letters and in science, would 
require volumes. I must abstain wholly from these 

5 subjects, and turn for a moment to the contemplation 
of what has been done on the great question of poli- 
tics and government. This is the master topic of the 
age; and during the whole fifty years it has intensely 
occupied the thoughts of men. The nature of civil 

10 government, its ends and uses, have been canvassed 
and investigated; ancient opinions attacked and de- 
fended; new ideas recommended and resisted, by 
whatever power the mind of man could bring to the 
controversy. From the closet and the public halls the 

15 debate has been transferred to the field ; and the world 
has been shaken by wars of unexampled magnitude, 
and the greatest variety of fortune. A day of peace 
has at length succeeded; and now that the strife has 
subsided, and the smoke cleared away, we may be- 

20 gin to see what has actually been done, permanently 
changing the state and condition of human society. 
And, without dwelling on particular circumstances, it 
is most apparent, that, from the before-mentioned 
causes of augmented knowledge and improved indi- 

25 vidua! condition, a real, substantial, and important 
change has taken place, and is taking place, highly 
favorable, on the whole, to human liberty and human 
happiness. 

The great wheel of political revolution began to move 

30 in America. Here its rotation was guarded, regular, 
and safe. Transferred to the other continent, from 
unfortunate but natural causes, it received an irregular 
and violent impulse ; it whirled along with a fearful 
celerity; till at length, like the chariot wheels in the 



92 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEK, LINCOLN 

races of antiquity, it took fire from the rapidity of its 
own motion, and blazed onward, spreading conflagration 
and terror around. 

We learn from the result of this experiment, how 
fortunate was our own condition, and how admirably 5 
the character of our people was calculated for setting 
the great example of popular governments. The pos- 
session of power did not turn the heads of the American 
people, for they had long been in the habit of exer- 
cising a great degree of self-control. Although the 10 
paramount authority of the parent state existed over 
them, yet a large field of legislation had always been 
open to our Colonial assemblies. They were accustomed 
to representative bodies and the forms of free govern- 
ment ; they understood the doctrine of the division of 15 
power among different branches, and the necessity of 
checks on each. The character of our countrymen, 
moreover, was sober, moral, and religious; and there 
was little in the change to shock their feelings of jus- 
tice and humanity, or even to disturb an honest preju- 20 
dice. We had no domestic throne to overturn, no privi- 
leged orders to cast down, no violent changes of prop- 
erty to encounter. In the American Eevolution, no man * 
sought or wished for more than to defend and enjoy 
his own. None hoped for plunder or for spoil. 25 
Eapacity was unknown to it; the axe was not among 
the instruments of its accomplishment; and we all know 
that it could not have lived a single day under any 
well-founded imputation of possessing a tendency ad- 
verse to the Christian religion. 30 

It need not surprise us, that, under circumstances less 
auspicious, political revolutions elsewhere, even when 
well intended, have terminated differently. It is, in- 
deed, a great achievement; it is the master-work of the 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 93 

world, to establish governments entirely popular on 
lasting foundations; nor is it easy, indeed, to introduce 
the popular principle at all into governments to which 
it has been altogether a stranger. It cannot be doubted, 

5 however, that Europe has come out of the contest, in 
which she has been so long engaged, with greatly 
superior knowledge, and, in many respects, in a highly 
improved condition. Whatever benefit has been ac- 
quired is likely to be retained, for it consists mainly in 

10 the acquisition of more enlightened ideas. And al- 
though kingdoms and provinces may be wrested from 
the hands that hold them, in the same manner they 
were obtained; although ordinary and vulgar power 
may, in human affairs, be lost as it has been won; yet 

15 it is the glorious prerogative of the empire of knowl- 
edge, that what it gains it never loses. On the contrary, 
it increases by the multiple of its power; all its ends 
become means; all its attainments, helps to new con- 
quests. Its whole abundant harvest is but so much seed 

20 wheat, and nothing has limited, and nothing can limit 
the amount of ultimate product. 

Under the influence of this rapidly increasing knowl- 
edge, the people have begun, in all forms of govern- 
ment, to think and to reason on affairs of state. Ee- 

25 garding government as an institution for the public 
good, they demand a knowledge of. its operations, and 
a participation in its exercise. A call for the repre- 
sentative system, wherever it is not enjoyed, and where 
there is already intelligence enough to estimate its value, 

30 is perseveringly made. Where men may speak out, they 
demand it! where the bayonet is at their throats, they 
pray for it. 

When Louis the Fourteenth said, "I am the State," 
he expressed the essence of the doctrine of unlimited 



94 WASHINGTON, WEBSTER, LINCOLN 

power. By the rules of that system, the people are 
disconnected from the state; they are its subjects, it 
is their lord. These ideas, founded in the love of 
power, and long supported by the excess and the abuse 
of it, are yielding, in our age, to other opinions ; and 5 
the civilized world seems at last to be proceeding to 
the conviction of that fundamental and manifest truth, 
that the powers of government are but a trust, and 
that they cannot be lawfully exercised but for the 
good of the community. As knowledge is more and 10 
more extended, this conviction becomes more and 
more general. Knowledge, in truth, is the great sun 
in the firmament. Life and power are scattered with 
all its beams. The prayer of the Grecian champion, 
when enveloped in unnatural clouds and darkness, is 15 
the appropriate political supplication for the people of 
every country not yet blessed with free institutions: — 

11 Dispel this cloud, the light of heaven restore, 
Give me to see, — and Ajax asks no more." 

We may hope that the growing influence of enlight- 20 
ened sentiment will promote the permanent peace of the 
world. Wars to maintain family alliances, to uphold or 
to cast down dynasties, and to regulate successions to 
thrones, which have occupied so much room in the his- 
tory of modern times, if not less likely to happen at all, 25 
will be less likely to become general and involve many 
nations, as the great principle shall be more and more 
established, that the interest of the world is peace, and 
its first great statute that every nation possesses the 
power of establishing a government for itself. But 30 
public opinion has attained also an influence over gov- 
ernments which do not admit the popular principle into 
their organization. A necessary respect for the judg- 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT 95 

ment of the world operates, in some measure, as a 
control over the most unlimited forms of authority. It 
is owing, perhaps, to this truth, that the interesting 
struggle of the Greeks has been suffered to go on so long, 

5 without a direct interference, either to wrest that coun- 
try from its present masters, or to execute the system of 
pacification by force, and, with united strength, lay the 
neck of Christian and civilized Greek at the foot of the 
barbarian Turk. Let us thank God that we live in an 

10 age when something has influence besides the bayonet, 
and when the sternest authority does not venture to 
encounter the scorching power of public reproach. Any 
attempt of the kind I have mentioned should be met 
by one universal burst of indignation; the air of the 

15 civilized world ought to be made too warm to be com- 
fortably breathed by any one who would hazard it. 

It is, indeeed, a touching reflection, that, while in 
the fulness of our country's happiness, we rear this 
monument to her honor, we look for instruction in our 

20 undertaking to a country which is now in fearful con- 
test, not for works of art or memorials of glory, but 
for her own existence. Let her be assured that she is 
not forgotten in the world; that her efforts are ap- 
plauded, and that constant prayers ascend for her suc- 

25 cess. And let us cherish a confident hope for her final 
triumph. If the true spark of religious and civil lib- 
erty be kindled, it will burn. Human agency cannot 
extinguish it. Like the earth's central fire, it may be 
smothered for a time; the ocean may overwhelm it; 

30 mountains may press it down ; but its inherent and 

unconquerable force will heave both the ocean and the 

land, and at some time or other, in some place or other, 

the volcano will break out and flame up to heaven. 

Among the great events of the half-century, we 



96 WASHINGTON, WEBSTER, LINCOLN 

must reckon, certainly, the revolution of South Amer- 
ica; and we are not likely to overrate the importance 
of that revolution, either to the people of the country 
itself or to the rest of the world. The late Spanish 
colonies, now independent states, under circumstances 5 
less favorable, doubtless, than attended our own revo- 
lution, have yet successfully commenced their national 
existence. They have accomplished the great object 
of establishing their independence; they are known 
and acknowledged in the world ; and although in re- 10 
gard to their systems of government, their sentiments 
on religious toleration, and their provision for public 
instruction, they may have yet much to learn, it must 
be admitted that they have risen to the condition of 
settled and established states more rapidly than could 11 
have been reasonably anticipated. They already fur- 
nish an exhilarating example of the difference between 
free governments and despotic misrule. Their com- 
merce, at this moment, creates a new activity in all 
the great marts of the world. They show themselves 20 
able, by an exchange of commodities, to bear a useful 
part in the intercourse of nations. 

A new spirit of enterprise and industry begins to 
prevail; all the great interests of society receive a 
salutary impulse ; and the progress of information not 25 
only testifies to an improved condition, but itself con- 
stitutes the highest and most essential improvement. 

When the battle of Bunker Hill was fought, the 
existence of South America was scarcely felt in the 
civilized world. The thirteen little Colonies of North 30 
America habitually called themselves the "Continent." 
Borne down by Colonial subjugation, monopoly, and 
bigotry, these vast regions of the South were hardly 
visible above the horizon. But in our day there has 



THE BUNKEB HILL MONUMENT 97 

been, as it were, a new creation. The southern hemi- 
sphere emerges from the sea. Its -lofty mountains begin 
to lift themselves into the light of heaven; its broad 
and fertile plains stretch out, in beauty, to the eye of 

5 civilized man, and at the mighty bidding of the voice 
of political liberty the waters of darkness retire. 

And, now, let us indulge an honest exultation in the 
conviction of the benefit which the example of our 
country has produced, and is likely to produce, on 

10 human freedom and human happiness. Let us en- 
deavor to comprehend in all its magnitude, and to feel 
in all its importance, the part assigned to us in the 
great drama of human affairs. We are placed at the 
head of the system of representative and popular gov- 

K ernments. Thus far our example shows that such 
governments are compatible not only with respectability 
and power, but with repose, with peace, with security 
of personal rights, with good laws, and a just adminis- 
tration. 

20 We are not propagandists. Wherever other systems 
are preferred, either as being thought better in them- 
selves, or as better suited to existing conditions, we 
leave the preference to be enjoyed. Our history hitherto 
proves, however, that the popular form is practicable, 

25 and that with wisdom and knowledge men may govern 
themselves ; and the duty incumbent on us is to preserve 
the consistency of this cheering example, and take care 
that nothing weaken its authority with the world. If, 
in our case, the representative system ultimately fail, 

JO popular governments must be pronounced impossible. 
No combination of circumstances more favorable to the 
experiment can ever be expected to occur. The last 
hopes of mankind, therefore, rest with us; and if it 
should be proclaimed that our example had become an 



98 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEK, LINCOLN 

argument against the experiment, the knell of popular 
liberty would be sounded throughout the earth. 

These are excitements to duty; but they are not 
suggestions of doubt. Our history and our condition, 
all that is gone before us, and all that surrounds us, 5 
authorize the belief that popular governments, though 
subject to occasional variations, in form perhaps not 
always for the better, may yet, in their general charac- 
ter, be as durable and permanent as other systems. We 
know, indeed, that in our country any other is im- 10 
possible. The principle of free governments adheres to 
the American soil. It is imbedded in it, immovable as 
its mountains. 

And let the sacred obligations which have devolved 
on this generation, and on us, sink deep into our hearts. 15 
Those who established our liberty and our government 
are daily dropping from among us. The great trust 
now descends to new hands. Let us apply ourselves 
to that which is presented to us, as our appropriate 
object. We can win no laurels in a war for inde- 20 
pendence. Earlier and worthier hands have gathered 
them all. Nor are there places for us by the side of 
Solon, and Alfred, and other founders of states. Our 
fathers have filled them. But there remains to us a 
great duty of defence and preservation ; and there is 25 
open to us also, a noble pursuit, to which the spirit of 
the times strongly invites us. Our proper business is 
improvement. Let our age be the age of improvement. 
In a day of peace, let us advance the arts of peace 
and the works of peace. Let us develop the resources 30 
of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institu- 
tions, promote all its great interests, and see whether 
we also, in our day and generation, may not perform 
something worthy to be remembered. Let us cultivate 



a true spirit of union and harmony. In pursuing the 
great objects which our condition points out to us, 
let us act under a settled conviction, and an habitual 
feeling, that these twenty-four States are one country. 
5 Let our conceptions be enlarged to the circle of our 
duties. Let us extend our ideas over the whole of the 
vast field in which we are called to act. Let our object 

be, OUR COUNTRY, OUR WHOLE COUNTRY, AND NOTHING 

but our country. And, by the blessing of God, may 
10 that country itself become a vast and splendid monu- 
ment, not of oppression and terror, but of Wisdom, of 
Peace, and of Liberty, upon which the world may gaze 
with admiration forever ! 



AT INDEPENDENCE HALL 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Philadelphia, Feb. 21, 1861 

I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself 
standing here in this place, where were collected together 
the wisdom, the patriotism, the devotion to principle 
from which sprang the institutions under which we 
live. You have kindly suggested to me that in my 5 
hands is the task of restoring peace to the present dis- 
tracted condition of the country. I can say in return, 
sir, that all the political sentiments I entertain have 
been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw 
them, from the sentiments which originated in and 10 
were given to the world from this hall. I have never 
had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the 
sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independ- 
ence. I have often pondered over the dangers which 
were incurred by the men who assembled here, and 15 
framed and adopted that Declaration of Independence. 
I have pondered over the toils that were endured by 
the officers and soldiers of the army who achieved that 
independence. I have often inquired of myself what 
great principle or idea it was that kept this confederacy 20 
so long together. It was not the mere matter of the 
separation of the colonies from the mother-land, but 
that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence 
which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this 
country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time. 25 
It was that which gave promise that in due time the 

100 



AT INDEPENDENCE HALL 101 

weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men. 
This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of 
Independence. Now, my friends, can this country be 
saved upon that basis ? If it can, I will consider myself 

5 one of the happiest of men in the world if I can help 
to save it. If it cannot be saved upon that principle, 
it will be truly awful. But if this country cannot be 
saved without giving up that principle, I was about 
to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than 

10 surrender it. Now, in my view of the present aspect 
of affairs, there need be no bloodshed or war. There is 
no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course ; 
and I may say in advance that there will be no blood- 
shed unless it be forced upon the government, and then 

15 it will be compelled to act in self-defense. 

My friends, this is wholly an unexpected speech, and 
I did not expect to be called upon to say a word when 
I came here. I supposed it was merely to do something 
towards raising the flag — I may, therefore, have said 

20 something indiscreet. I have said nothing but what 
I am willing to live by, and if it be the pleasure of 
Almighty God, die by. 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
March 4, 1861 

Fellow Citizens oe the United States — In com- 
pliance with a custom as old as the government itself, 
I appear before you to address you briefly, and to take 
in your presence the oath prescribed by the Constitution 
of the United States to be taken by the President 5 
"before he enters on the execution of his office." 

I do not consider it necessary at present for me to 
discuss those matters of administration about which 
there is no special anxiety or excitement. 

Apprehension seems to exist, among the people of the 10 
Southern States, that by the accession of a republican 
administration their property and their peace and per- 
sonal security are to be endangered. There has never 
been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. In- 
deed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all 15 
the while existed and been open to their inspection. 
It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him 
who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of 
those speeches when I declare that "I have no purpose, 
directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution 20 
of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I 
have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination 
to do so." Those who nominated and elected me did 
so with full knowledge that I had made this and many 
similar declarations, and had never recanted them. And 25 
more than this, they placed in the platform for my ac- 

102 



FIRST INAUGUEAL ADDRESS 103 

ceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the 
clear and emphatic resolution which I now read: — 

"Resolved — That the maintenance inviolate of the 
rights of the states, and especially the right of each 

5 state to order and control its own domestic institutions 
according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential 
to the balance of power on which the perfection and 
endurance of our political fabric depend, and we de- 
nounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil 

10 of any state or territory, no matter under what pretext, 
as among the gravest of crimes." 

I now reiterate these sentiments; and, in doing so, 
I only press upon the public attention the most con- 
clusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that 

15 the property, peace, and security of no section are to 
be in any wise endangered by the now incoming admin- 
istration. I add, too, that all the protection which, 
consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be 
given, will be cheerfully given to all the states, when 

20 lawfully demanded, for whatever cause — as cheerfully 
to one section as to another. 

There is much controversy about the delivering up 
of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now 
read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any 

25 other of its provisions : — 

"No person held to service or labor in one state, 
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, 
in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be 
discharged from such service or labor, but shall be 

30 delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service 
or labor may be due." 

It is scarcely questioned that this provision was in- 
tended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what 
we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the law- 



104 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEK, LINCOLN 

giver is the law. All members of Congress swear their 
support to the whole Constitution — to this provision 
as much as any other. To the proposition^ then, that 
slaves, whose cases come within the terms of this clause, 
"shall be delivered up," their oaths are unanimous. 5 
Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, 
could they not, with nearly equal unanimity, frame and 
pass a law by means of which to keep good that unani- 
mous oath? 

There is some difference of opinion whether this clause 10 
should be enforced by national or by state authority; 
but surely that difference is not a very material one. 
If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little 
consequence to him, or to others, by which authority 
it is done. And should any one, in any case, be content 15 
that his oath shall go unkept, on a mere unsubstantial 
controversy as to how it shall be kept? 

Again, in any law upon the subject, ought not all 
the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and human 
jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be 20 
not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And might 
it not be well, at the same time, to provide by law for 
the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution 
which guarantees that "the citizens of each state shall 
be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens 25 
in the several states?" 

I shall take the official oath to-day with no mental 
reservation, and with no purpose to construe the Con- 
stitution or laws by any hypercritical rule. And while 
I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Con- 30 
gress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will 
be much safer for all, both in official and private sta- 
tions, to conform to and abide by all those acts which 
stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting 



FIRST INAUGUEAL ADDRESS 105 

to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitu- 
tional. 

It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of 
a president under our national constitution. During 

5 that period, fifteen different and greatly distinguished 
citizens have, in succession, administered the executive 
branch of the government. They have conducted it 
through many perils, and generally with great success. 
Yet, with all this scope for precedent, I now enter 

10 upon the same task for the brief constitutional term 
of four years, under great and peculiar difficulty. A 
disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only 
menaced, is now formidably attempted. 

I hold that, in contemplation of universal law, and 

15 of the Constitution, the union of these states is per- 
petual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the 
fundamental law of all national governments. It is 
safe to assert that no government proper ever had a 
provision in its organic law for its own termination. 

20 Continue to execute all the express provisions of our 
national government, and the Union will endure for- 
ever — it being impossible to destroy it, except by some 
action not provided for in the instrument itself. 

Again, if the United States be not a government 

25 proper, but an association of states in the nature of con- 
tract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade 
by less than all the parties who made it ? One party to 
a contract may violate it — break it, so to speak; but does 
it not require all to lawfully rescind it? 

30 Descending from these general principles, we find the 
proposition that, in legal contemplation, the Union is 
perpetual, confirmed by the history of the Union itself. 
The Union is much older than the Constitution. It 

£ was formed in fact, by the articles of association in 



106 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEK, LINCOLN 

1774. It was matured and continued by the Declara- 
tion of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, 
and the faith of all the then thirteen states expressly 
plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the 
articles of confederation in 1778. And, finally, in 1787, 5 
one of the declared objects for ordaining and establish- 
ing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect 
Union." 

But if destruction of the Union, by one, or by a part 
only, of the states, be lawfully possible, the Union is 10 
less perfect than before, the Constitution having lost 
the vital ejement of perpetuity. 

It follows, from these views, that no state upon its 
own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union; 
that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally 15 
void ; and that acts of violence within any state or states, 
against the authority of the United States, are insurrec- 
tionary, or revolutionary, according to circumstances. 

I, therefore, consider that, in view of the Constitu- 
tion and the laws, the Union is unbroken, and to the 20 
extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitu- 
tion itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of 
the Union be faithfully executed in all the states. Doing 
this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and 
I shall perform it, so far as practicable, unless my right- 25| 
ful masters, the American people, shall withhold the re- 
quisite means, or, in some authoritative manner, direct 
the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a 
menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union 
that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself. 30 

In doing this there need be no bloodshed or violence ; 
and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the 
national authority. The power confided to me will be 
used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places ^ 



FIEST INAUGUEAL ADDEESS 107 

belonging to the government, and to collect the duties 
and imposts; but beyond what may be but necessary for 
these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of 
force against or among the people anywhere. Where 

5 hostility to the United States in any interior locality 
shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent 
resident citizens from holding the federal offices, there 
will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among 
the people for that object. While the strict legal right 

10 may exist in the government to enforce the exercise of 
these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating, 
and so nearly impracticable withal, I deem it better to 
forego, for the time, the uses of such offices. 

The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be fur- 

15 nished in all parts of the Union. So far as possible, the 
people everywhere shall have that sense of perfect secur- 
ity which is most favorable to calm thought and reflec- 
tion. The course here indicated will be followed, unless 
current events and experience shall show a modification 

20 or change to be proper, and in every case and exigency 
my best discretion will be exercised, according to cir- 
cumstances actually existing, and with a view and a 
hope of a peaceful solution of the national troubles, and 
the restoration of fraternal sympathies and affections. 

25 That there are persons in one section or another who 
seek to destroy the Union at all events, and are glad of 
any pretext to do it, I will neither affirm nor deny; but 
if there be such, I need address no word to them. To 
those, however, who really love the Union, may I not 

30 speak ? 

Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruc- 
tion of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its 
memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascer- 
tain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so des- 



108 WASHINGTON, WEBSTER, LINCOLN 

perate a step while there is any possibility that any por- 
tion of the ills yon fly from have no real existence? 
Will you, while the certain ills yon fly to are greater 
than all the real ones yon fly from — will yon risk the 
commission of so fearful a mistake? 5 

All profess to be content in the Union, if all constitu- 
tional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that 
any right, plainly written in the Constitution, has been 
denied? I think not. Happily the human mind is so 
constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of 10 
doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in 
which a plainly written provision of the Constitution 
has ever been denied. If, by the mere force of numbers, 
a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly 
written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point 15 
of view, justify revolution — certainly would if such a 
right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All 
the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so 
plainly assured to them by affirmation and negations, 
guarantees and prohibitions in the Constitution, that 20 
controversies never arise concerning them. But no or- 
ganic law can ever be framed with a provision specifical- 
ly applicable to every question which may occur in prac- 
tical administration. No foresight can anticipate, nor 
any document of reasonable length contain, express pro- 25 
visions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from 
labor be surrendered by national or by state authority? 
The Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress 
prohibit slavery in the territories? The Constitution 
does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery 30 
in the territories? The Constitution does not expressly 
say. 

From questions of this class spring all our constitu- 
tional controversies, and we divide upon them into ma- 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 109 

jorities and minorities. If the minority will not ac- 
quiesce, the majority must, or the government must 
cease. There is no other alternative; for continuing 
the government is acquiescence on one side or the other. 

5 If a minority in such case will secede rather than ac- 
quiesce, they make a precedent which, in turn, will 
divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own will 
secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be 
controlled by such minority. For instance, why may 

10 not any portion of a new confederacy, a year or two 
hence, arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of 
the present Union now claim to secede from it? All 
who cherish disunion sentiments are now being educated 
to the exact temper of doing this. 

15 Is there such perfect identity of interests among the 
states to compose a new Union, as to produce harmony 
only, and prevent renewed secession? 

Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of 
anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional 

20 checks and limitations, and always changing easily with 
deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, 
is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever 
rejects it, does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to des- 
potism. Unanimity is impossible ; the rule of a minor- 

25 ity, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible ; 
so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or des- 
potism, in some form, is all that is left. 

I do not forget the position assumed by some, that 
constitutional questions are to be decided by the Su- 

S0 preme Court ; nor do I deny that such decisions must 
be. binding, in any case, upon the parties to a suit, as to 
the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to 
very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases, 
by all other departments of the government. And while 



HO WASHINGTON, WEBSTER, LINCOLN 

it is obviously possible that such decisions may be errone- 
ous in any given case, still, the evil effect following it 
being limited to that particular case, with the chance 
that it may be overruled, and never become a precedent 
for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils 5 
of a different practice. At the same time, the candid 
citizen must confess that if the policy of the government 
upon vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be 
irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the 
instant they are made in ordinary litigation between li 
parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased 
to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically 
resigned their government into the hands of that emi- 
nent tribunal. 

Nor is there in this view any assault upon the Court U 
or the Judges. It is a duty from which they may not 
shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, 
and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their 
decisions to political purposes. One section of our 
country believes slavery . is right, and ought to be ex- 21 
tended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought 
not to be extended. This is the only substantial dis- 
pute. The fugitive slave clause of the Constitution, 
and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave- 
trade, are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law 21 
can ever be in a community where the moral sense of 
the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The 
great body of the people abide by the dry legal obliga- 
tion in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, 
I think, cannot be perfectly cured ; and it would be 3i 
worse, in both cases, after the separation of the sections 
than before. The foreign slave-trade, now imperfectly 
suppressed, would be ultimately revived, without restric- 
tion, in one section; while fugitive slaves, now only 



FIKST INAUGURAL ADDRESS HI 

partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all 
by the other. 

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot 
remove our respective sections from each other, nor 

5 build an impassable wall between them. A husband 
and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence 
and beyond the reach of each other; but the different 
parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but 
remain face to face; and intercourse, either amicable or 

10 hostile, must continue between them. It is impossible 
then to make that intercourse more advantageous or 
more satisfactory after separation than before. Can 
aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? 
Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens 

15 than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, 
you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on 
both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the 
identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse, are 
again upon you. 

20 This country, with its institutions, belongs to the 
.people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary 
of the existing government, they can exercise their con- 
stitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary 
right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be ignor- 

25 ant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens 
are desirous of having the National Constitution 
amended. While I make no recommendation of amend- 
ment, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the 
people over the whole subject, to be exercised in either 

30 of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself, and I 
should, under existing circumstances, favor, rather than 
oppose, a fair opportunity being afforded the people to 
act upon it. I will venture to add, that to me the con- 
vention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amend- 



112 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEE, LINCOLN 

ments to originate with the people themselves, instead 
of only permitting them to take or reject propositions 
originated by others, not especially chosen for the pur- 
pose, and which might not be precisely such as they 
would wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a 5 
proposed amendment to the Constitution — which amend- 
ment, however, I have not seen — has passed Congress, 
to the effect that the Federal Government shall never 
interfere with the domestic institutions of the states, in- 
cluding that of persons held to service. To avoid mis- 10 
construction of what I have said, I depart from my pur- 
pose not to speak of particular amendments, so far as 
to say that, holding such a provision now to be implied 
constitutional law, I have no objections to its being 
made express and irrevocable. 15 

The chief magistrate derives all his authority from 
the people, and they have conferred none upon him to 
fix terms for the separation of the states. The people 
themselves can do this also if they choose; but the execu- 
tive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to 20 
administer the represent government as it came to his 
hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his 
successor. 

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the 
ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or 25 
equal hope in the world? In our present differences, is 
either party without faith of being in the right? If 
the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with his eternal truth 
and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours 
of the South, that truth and that justice will surely 30 
prevail, by the judgment of this great tribunal of the 
American people. 

By the frame of the government under which we live, 
the same people have wisely given their public servants 



FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS 113 

but little power for mischief and have with equal wis- 
dom, provided for the return of that little to their own 
hands at very short intervals. While the people retain 
their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any 

5 extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure 
the government in the short space of four years. 

My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well 
upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost 
by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of 

10 you in hot haste to a step which you would never take 
deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking 
time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such 
of you as are now dissatisfied, still have the old Consti- 
tution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws 

15 of your own framing under it ; while the new adminis- 
tration will have no immediate power, if it would, to 
change either. If it were admitted that you who are 
dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still 
is no single good reason for precipitate action. In- 

20 telligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance 
on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land, 
are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our 
present difficulty. 

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, 

25 and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. 
The government will not assail you. 

You can have no conflict without being yourselves the 
aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to 
destroy the government while I shall have the most sol- 

30 emn one to "preserve, protect, and defend" it. 

I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but 
friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion 
may have strained, it must not break our bonds of 
affection. 



114 WASHINGTON, WEBSTER, LINCOLN 

The mystic chord of memory, stretching from every 
battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and 
hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the 
chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they 
will be, by the better angels of our nature. 5 



LETTEE TO HOEACE GEEELEY. 

abraham lincoln". 

Executive Mansion. 

Washington, August 22, 1862. 
Hon. Horace Greeley: 

Dear Sir: — I have just read yours of the 19th, ad- 
dressed to myself through the New York Tribune. If 
there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact 

5 which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and 
here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences 
which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not, now 
and here, argue against them. If there be perceptible 
in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in 

10 deference to an old friend whose heart I have always 
supposed to be right. 

As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing," as you say, 
I have not meant to leave anyone in doubt. 

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest 

15 way under the constitution. The sooner the national 
authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be 
the "Union as it was." If there be those who would 
not save the Union unless they could at the same time 

- save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be 

20 those who would not save the Union unless they could 
at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with 
them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save 
the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. 
If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I 

25 would do it ; and if I could do it by freeing all the 
slaves, I would do it: and if I could save it by freeing 

115 



116 WASHINGTON, WEBSTER, LINCOLN 

some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. 
What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do be- 
cause I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I 
forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help 
to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall be- 5 
lieve what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do 
more whenever I shall believe that doing more will help 
the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to 
be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they 
shall appear to be true views. 10 

I have stated my purpose according to my view of 
official duty; and I intend no modifications of my oft- 
expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could 
be free. Yours, 

A. Lincoln. 



SPEECH AT GETTYSBURG 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

November 19, 1863 

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought 
forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in 
liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men 
are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil 

5 war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so con- 
ceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met 
on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to 
dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place 
for those who here gave their lives that that nation 

10 might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we 
should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedi- 
cate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this 
ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled 
here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or 

15 detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, 
what we say here, but it can never forget what they did 
here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated 
here to the unfinished work which they who fought here 
have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us 

20 to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before 
us, that from these honored dead we take increased de- 
votion to that cause for which they gave the last full 
measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that 
these dead shall not have died in vain ; that this nation, 

25 under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that 
government of the people, by the people, and for the 
people, shall not perish from the earth. 

117 



SECOND INAUGUEAL ADDEESS 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

March 4, 1865 

Fellow- Country men — At this second appearing to 
take the oath of the Presidential office, there is less occa- 
sion for an extended address than there was at the 
first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course 
to be pursued seemed very fitting and proper. Now, at 5 
the expiration of four years, during which public 
declarations have been constantly called forth on every 
point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs 
the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, 
little that is new could be presented. io 

The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly 
depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, 
and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encourag- 
ing to all. With high hope for the future, no predic- 
tion in regard to it is ventured. 15 

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, 
all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending 
civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avoid it. While 
the inaugural address was being delivered from this 
place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without 20 
war, insurgent agents were in the city, seeking to de- 
stroy it with war — seeking to dissolve the Union and 
divide the effects by negotiation. Both parties depre- 
cated war, but one of them would make war rather than 
let the nation survive, and the other would accept war 25 
rather than let it perish, and the war came. One-eightlr 

118 



SECOND INAUGUEAL ADDKESS U9 

of the whole population were colored slaves, not dis- 
tributed generally over the Union, but localized in the 
southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar 
and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was 

5 somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetu- 
ate, and extend this interest was the object for which 
the insurgents would rend the Union by war, while the 
Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict 
the territorial enlargement of it. 

10 Neither party expected for the war the magnitude 
or the duration which it has already attained. Neither 
anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease, 
even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked 
for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental 

15 and astounding. 

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, 
and' each invokes His aid against the other. It may 
seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just 
God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat 

20 of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not 
judged. The prayer of both could not be answered. 
That of neither has been answered fully. The 
Almighty has His own purposes. Woe unto the world 
because of offences, for it must needs be that offences 

25 come, but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh. 
If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of these 
offences which, in the providence of God, must needs 
come, but which having continued through His ap- 
pointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives 

30 to both North and South this terrible war as the woe 
due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern 
there any departure from those Divine attributes which 
the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? 
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this 



120 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEK, LINCOLN 

mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if 
God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by 
the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unre- 
quited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood 
drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with 5 
the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so, still 
it must be said, that the judgments of the Lord are true 
and righteous altogether. 

With malice towards none, with charity for all, with 
firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, 10 
let. us finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's 
wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, 
and for his widow and his orphans, to do all which may 
achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among 
ourselves and with all nations. 15 



LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS 

BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Washington, April 11, 1865. 

We meet this evening not in sorrow, but in gladness 
of heart. The evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond," 
and the surrender of the principal insurgent army, give 

" hope of a righteous and speedy peace, whose joyous ex- 

5 pression cannot be restrained. In the midst of this, 
however, He from whom all blessings flow must not be 
forgotten. A call for a national thanksgiving is being 
prepared, and will be duly promulgated. Nor must 
those whose harder part, gives us the cause of rejoicing 

10 be overlooked. Their honors must not be parceled out 
with others. I myself was near the front, and had the 
high ^pleasure of transmitting much of the good news 
to you; but no part of the honor for plan or execution 
is mine. To General Grant, his skilful officers and 

15 brave men, all belongs. The gallant navy stood ready, 
but was not in reach to take active part. 

By these recent successes the reinauguration of the 
national authority — reconstruction — which has had a 
large share of thought from the first, is pressed much 

20 more closely upon our attention. It is fraught with 
great difficulty. XTnlike a case of war between inde- 
pendent nations, there is no authorized organ for us to 
treat with — no one man has authority to give up the 
rebellion for any other man. We simply must begin 

25 with and mold from disorganized and discordant ele- 
ments. Nor is it a small additional embarrassment 
that we, the loyal people, differ among ourselves as to 

121 



122 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEK, LINCOLN 

the mode, manner and measure of reconstruction. As 
a general rule, I abstain from reading the reports of 
attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that 
to which I cannot properly offer an answer. In spite of 

5 this precaution, however, it comes to my knowledge that 
I am much censured for some supposed agency in setting 
up and seeking to sustain the new State government of 
Louisiana. 

In this I have done just so much as, and no more than, 

10 the public knows. In the annual message of December, 
1863, and in the accompanying proclamation, I presented 
a plan of reconstruction, as the phrase goes, which I 
promised, if adopted by any State, should be acceptable 
to and sustained by the executive government of the 

15 nation. I distinctly stated that this was not the only 
plan which might possibly be acceptable, and I also dis- 
tinctly protested that the executive claimed no right to 
say when or whether members should be admitted to 
seats in Congress from such States. This plan was in 

20 advance submitted to the then Cabinet, and distinctly 
approved by every member of it. One of them suggested 
that I should then and in that connection apply the 
Emancipation Proclamation to the theretofore excepted 
parts of Virginia and Louisiana; that I should drop the 

25 suggestion about apprenticeship for freed people, and 
that I should omit the protest against my own power 
in regard to the admission of members to Congress. But 
even he approved every part and parcel of the plan 
which has since been employed or touched by the action 

30 of Louisiana. 

The new constitution of Louisiana, declaring emanci- 
pation for the whole State, practically applies the procla- 
mation to the part previously excepted. It does not 
adopt apprenticeship for freed people, and it is silent, 



LAST PUBLIC ADDEESS 123 

as it could not well be otherwise, about the admission 
of members to Congress. So that, as it applies to Louis- 
iana, every member of the Cabinet fully approved the 
plan. The message went to Congress, and I received 

5 many commendations of the plan, written and verbal, 
and not a single objection to it from any professed eman- 
cipationist came to my knowledge until after the news 
reached Washington that the people of Louisiana had 
begun to move in accordance with it. From about July, 

10 1862, I had corresponded with different persons sup- 
posed to be interested [in] seeking a reconstruction of a 
State government for Louisiana. When the message of 
1863, with the plan before mentioned, reached New Or- 
leans, General Banks wrote me that he was confident 

15 that the people, with his military cooperation, would re- 
construct substantially on that plan. I wrote to him 
and some of them to try it. They tried it, and the 
result is known. Such has been my only agency in get- 
ting up the Louisiana government. 

20 As to sustaining it, my promise is out, as before stated. 
But as bad promises are better broken than kept, I shall 
treat this as a bad promise, and break it whenever I shall 
be convinced that keeping it is adverse to the public in- 
terest; but I have not yet been so convinced. I have 

25 been shown a letter on this subject, supposed to be an 
able one, in which the writer expresses regret that my 
mind has not seemed to be definitely fixed on the ques- 
tion whether the seceded States, so called, are in the 
Union or out of it. It would perhaps add astonishment 

30 to his regret were he to learn that since I have found 
professed Union men endeavoring to make that question, 
I have purposely forborne any public expression upon it. 
As appears to me, that question has not been, nor yet is, 
a practically material one, and that any discussion of it, 



124 WASHINGTON, WEBSTER, LINCOLN 

while it thus remains practically immaterial, could have 
no effect other than the mischievous one of dividing our 
friends. As yet, whatever it may hereafter become, that 
question is bad as the basis of a controversy, and good 
for nothing at all — a merely pernicious abstraction. 5 

We all agree that the seceded States, so called, are out 
of their proper practical relation with the Union, and 
that the sole object of the government, civil and mili- 
tary, in regard to those States is to again get them into 
that proper practical relation. I believe that it is not 10 
only possible, but in fact easier, to do this without decid- 
ing or even considering whether these States have ever 
been out of the Union, than with it. Finding themselves 
safely at home, it would be utterly immaterial whether 
they had ever been abroad. Let us all join in doing the 15 
acts necessary to restoring the proper practical relations 
between these States and the Union, and each forever 
after innocently indulge his own opinion whether in 
doing the acts he brought the States from without into 
the Union, or only gave them proper assistance, they 20 
never having been out of it. The amount of constitu- 
ency, so to speak, on which the new Louisiana govern- 
ment rests, would be more satisfactory to all if it con- 
tained 50,000, 01 30,000, or even 20,000, instead of 
only about 12,000, as it does. It is also unsatisfactory 25 
to some that the elective franchise is not given to the 
colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now 
conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve 
our cause as soldiers. 

Still, the question is not whether the Louisiana gov- 30 
ernment, as it stands, is quite all that is desirable. The 
question is, will it be wiser to take it as it is and help 
to improve it, or to reject and disperse it? Can Louis- 
iana be brought into proper practical relation with the 



LAST PUBLIC ADDKESS 125 

Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new 
State government ? Some twelve thousand voters in the 
heretofore slave State of Louisiana have sworn allegiance 
to the Union, assumed to be the rightful political power 

5 of the State, held elections, organized a State govern- 
ment, adopted a free State constitution, giving the bene- 
fit of public schools equally to black and white, and em- 
powering the legislature to confer the elective franchise 
upon the colored man. Their legislature has already 

10 voted to ratify the constitutional amendment recently 
passed by Congress, abolishing slavery throughout the 
nation. These 12,000 persons are thus fully committed 
to the Union and to perpetual freedom in the State — 
committed to the very things, and nearly all the things, 

15 the nation wants — and they ask the nation's recognition 
and its assistance to make good their committal. 

Now, if we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost 
to disorganize and disperse them. We, in effect, say to 
the white man: You are worthless or worse; we will 

20 neither help you, nor be helped by you. To the blacks 
we say : This cup of liberty which these, your old mas- 
ters, hold to your lips we will dash from you, and leave 
you to the chances of gathering the spilled and scattered 
contents in some vague and undefined when, where, and 

25 how. If this course, discouraging and paralyzing both 
white and black, has any tendency to bring Louisiana 
into proper practical relations with the Union, I have 
so far been unable to perceive it. If, on the contrary, 
we recognize and sustain the new government of Louis- 

30 iana, the converse of all this is made true. We encour- 
age the hearts and nerve the arms of the 12,000 to 
adhere to their work, and argue for it, and proselyte for 
it, and fight for it, and feed it, and grow it, and ripen it 
to a complete success. The colored man, too, in seeing 



126 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEE, LINCOLN 

all united for him, is inspired with vigilance, and energy, 
and daring, to the same end. Grant that he desires the 
elective franchise, will he not attain it sooner by saving 
the already advanced steps toward it than by running 
backward over them ? Concede that the new govern- 5 
ment of Louisiana is only to what it should be as the 
egg is to the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by 
hatching the egg than by smashing it. 

Again, if we reject Louisiana we also reject one vote 
in favor of the proposed amendment to the national Con- 10 
stitution. To meet this proposition it has been argued 
that no more than three-fourths of those States which 
have not attempted secession are necessary to validly 
ratify the amendment. I do not commit myself against 
this further than to say that such a ratification would 15 
be questionable, and sure to be persistently questioned, 
while a ratification by three-fourths of all the States 
would be unquestioned and unquestionable. I repeat 
the question: Can Louisiana be brought into proper 
practical relation with the Union sooner by sustaining or 20 
by discarding her new State government? What has 
been said of Louisiana will apply generally to other 
States. And yet so great peculiarities pertain to each 
State, and such important and sudden changes occur 
in the same State, and withal so new and unprecedented 25 
is the whole case that no exclusive and inflexible plan 
can safely be prescribed as to details and collaterals. 
Such exclusive and inflexible plan would surely become 
a new entanglement. Important principles may and 
must be inflexible. In the present situation, as the so 
phrase goes, it may be my duty to make some new an- 
nouncement to the people of the South. I am consider- 
ing, and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action 
will be proper. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

From "The Spectatok," London, Apkil 25, and 
May 2, 1891. 



The English-speaking world will never read the story 
of the Rebellion without a thrill of pride and exultation. 
Heroic and inspiring as was the achievement of the 
Puritans in throwing off the tyranny of the Stuarts, 

5 and establishing in its place, not license or anarchy, 
but a wise and liberal polity, the veiling hand of time 
diminishes for modern men its distinctness and reality. 
With the defense of the Union it is different. We can 
almost hear the reverberations of the cannon at Vicks- 

10 burg, and our hands may still clasp the hands of those 
who fought for the life of the Nation at Gettysburg 
and Chattanooga. The glory won by the English race 
is so near, that it still stirs the blood like a trumpet 
to read of the patriotism of the men who fought at 

15 the call of Lincoln. Nothing is more admirable, as 
nothing is more dramatic in recorded history, than 
the manner in which the North sprang to arms at the 
news that the nation's flag had been fired on at Fort 
Sumter. It is all very well to hire soldiers at so much 

20 a day and send them to the front with salutes and re- 
joicings, but the action of the Eastern and Western 
States meant a great deal more than this. It meant a 
voluntary sacrifice on the part of men who had nothing 
to gain and everything to lose by throwing over a life 

25 of ease or profit to shoulder a musket or serve a gun. 
A continent was on fire. 

127 



j_28 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEK, LINCOLN 

It is one of the greatest of Lincoln's claims to ad- 
miration, that though he sympathized with the fervor 
and enthusiasm of his countrymen, he was not carried 
away by it. He was one of those rare men who can at 
once be zealous and moderate, who are kindled by great 5 
ideas, and who yet retain complete control of the critical 
faculty. And more than this, Lincoln was a man who 
could be reserved without the chill of reserve. Again, 
he could make allowance for demerits in a principle or 
a human instrument, without ever falling into the pur- 10 
blindness of cynicism. He often acted in his dealings 
with men much as a professed cynic might have acted; 
but his conduct was due, not to any disbelief in virtue, 
but to a wide tolerance and a clear knowledge of human 
nature. He saw things as a disillusionised man sees 15 
them, and yet in the bad sense he never suffered any 
disillusionment. For suffusing and combining his other 
qualities was a serenity of mind which affected the whole 
man. He viewed the world too much as a whole to be 
greatly troubled or perplexed over its accidents. To this 20 
serenity of mind was due an almost total absence of 
indignation in the ordinary sense. Generals might half- 
ruin the cause for the sake of some trumpery quarrel, 
or in order to gain some petty personal advantage ; office- 
seekers might worry at the very crisis of the nation's 25 
fate ; but none of the pettiness, the spites, or the follies 
could rouse in Lincoln the impatience or the indigna- 
tion that would have been wakened in ordinary men. 
Pity, and nothing else, was the feeling such exhibitions 
occasioned him. Lincoln seems to have felt the excuse 30 
that tempers the guilt of every mortal transgression. 
His largeness and tenderness of nature made him at 
heart a universal apologist. He was, of course, too 
practical and too great a statesman to let this sensibility 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 129 

to the excuses that can be made for human conduct in- 
duce him to allow misdeeds to go unpunished or un- 
corrected. He acted as firmly and as severely as if he 
had experienced the most burning indignation; but the 

5 moment we come to Lincoln's real feelings, we see that 
he is never incensed, and that, even in its most legitimate 
form, the desire for retribution is absent from his mind. 
Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner, was the secret 
of his attitude towards human affairs. That is not the 

10 highest wisdom ; but it errs on the right, and also on the 
rare, side. 

So much for the intellectual side of Lincoln's nature. 
Behind it was a personality of singular charm. Tender- 
ness and humor were its main characteristics. As he 

15 rode through a forest in spring-time, he would keep 
on dismounting to put back the young birds that had 
fallen from their nests. There was not a situation in 
life which could not afford him the subject for a kindly 
smile. It needed a character so full of gentleness and 

20 good temper to sustain the intolerable weight of re- 
sponsibility which the war threw upon the shoulders of 
the President. Most men would have been crushed by 
the burden. His serenity of temper saved Lincoln. 
Except when the miserable necessity of having to sign 

25 the order for a military execution took away his sleep, 
he carried on his work without any visible sign of over- 
strain. Not the least of Lincoln's achievements is 
to be found in the fact that though for four years he 
wielded a power and a personal authority greater than 

30 that exercised by any monarch on earth, he never gave 
satirist or caricaturist the slightest real ground for de- 
claring that his sudden rise to world-wide fame had 
turned the head of the backwoodsman. Under the cir- 
cumstances, there would have been every excuse; for 



130 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEK, LINCOLN 

Lincoln, had he assumed to his subordinates somewhat 
the bearing of the autocrat he was. It is a sign of 
the absolute sincerity and good sense of the President 
that he was under no sort of a temptation to do so. 
Lincoln was before all things a gentleman, and the good 5 
taste inseparable from that character made it impos- 
sible for him to be spoiled by power and position. This 
grace and strength of character is never better shown 
than in the letters to his generals, victorious or de- 
feated. When they were beaten, he was anxious to share 10 
the blame; when victorious, he was instant to deny by 
anticipation any rumor that he had inspired "the strategy 
of the campaign. If a general had to be reprimanded, 
he did it as only the most perfect of gentlemen could 
do it. He could convey the severest censure without in- 15 
flicting any wound that would not heal, and this not 
by using roundabout expressions, but in the plainest 
language. "He writes to me like a father," were the 
heart-felt words of a commander who had been reproved 
by the President. Throughout these communications, 20 
the manner in which he not only conceals, but alto- 
gether sinks, all sense that the men to whom they 
were addressed were, in effect, his subordinates, is 
worthy of special note. "A breath could make them, 
as a breath had made," and yet Lincoln writes as if 25 
his generals were absolutely independent. 

We have said something of Lincoln as a man and 
as the leader of a great cause. We desire now to dwell 
upon a point which is often neglected in considering the 
career of the hero of the Union, but which, from the 3Q 
point of view of letters, is of absorbing interest. No 
criticism of Mr. Lincoln can be in any sense adequate 
which does not deal with his astonishing power over 
words. It is not too much to say of him that he is 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 131 

among the greatest masters of prose ever produced by 
the English race. Self-educated, or rather not educated 
at all in the ordinary sense, as he was, he contrived to 
obtain an insight and power in the handling of the 

5 mechanism of letters such as has been given to few men 
of his, or, indeed, in any age. That the gift of oratory 
should be a natural gift, is understandable enough, for 
the methods of the orator, like those of the poet, are 
primarily sensuous, and may well be instinctive. Mr. 

10 Lincoln's achievement seems to show that no less is the 
writing of prose an endowment of Nature. Mr. Lincoln 
did not get his ability to handle prose through his 
gift of speech. That these are separate, though co- 
ordinate, faculties, is a matter beyond dispute, for many 

15 of the great orators of the world have proved them- 
selves exceedingly inefficient in the matter of deliberate 
composition. Mr. Lincoln enjoyed both gifts. His let- 
ters, dispatches, memoranda, and written addresses are 
even better than his speeches; and in speaking thus of 

20 Mr. Lincoln's prose, we are not thinking merely of 
certain pieces of inspired rhetoric. We do not praise 
his work because, like Mr. Bright, he could exercise 
his power of coining illuminating phrases as effectively 
upon paper as on the platform. It is in his conduct of 

25 the pedestrian portions of composition that Mr. Lin- 
coln's genius for prose style is exhibited. Mr. Bright's 
writing cannot claim to answer the description which 
Hazlitt has given of the successful prose-writer's per- 
formance. Mr. Lincoln's can. What Hazlitt says is 

30 complete and perfect in definition. He tells us that the 
prose-writer so uses his pen "that he loses no particle 
of the exact characteristic extreme impression of the 
thing he writes about;" and with equal significance he 
points out that "the prose-writer is master of his ma- 



132 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEE, LINCOLN 

terials," as "the poet is the slave of his style." If 
these words convey a true definition, then Mr. Lincoln 
is a master of prose. Whatever the subject he has in 
hand, whether it be bald or impassioned, business-like 
or pathetic, we feel that we "lose no particle of the 5 
exact characteristic extreme impression" of the thing 
written about. We have it all, and not merely a part. 
Every line shows that the writer is master of his ma- 
terials; that he guides the words, never the words him. 
This is, indeed, the predominant note throughout all 10 
Mr. Lincoln's work. We feel that he is like the en- 
gineer who controls some mighty reservoir. As he de- 
sires, he opens the various sluice-gates, but for no in- 
stant is the water not under his entire control. We 
are sensible in reading Mr. Lincoln's writings, that an 15 
immense force is gathered up behind him, and that in 
each jet that flows, every drop is meant. Some writers 
only leak; others half flow through determined chan- 
nels, half leak away their words like a broken lock 
when it is emptying. The greatest, like Mr. Lincoln, 20 
send out none but clear-shaped streams. 

The "Second Inaugural" — a written composition, 
though read to the citizens from the steps of the Capi- 
tol — well illustrates our words. Mr. Lincoln had to tell 
his countrymen, that, after four years' struggle, the war 25 
was practically ended. The four years' agony, the pas- 
sion of love which he felt for his country, his joy in 
her salvation, his sense of tenderness for those who fell, 
of pity mixed with sternness for the men who had 
deluged the land with blood, — all the thoughts these 30 
feelings inspired were behind Lincoln pressing for ex- 
pression. A writer of less power would have been over- 
whelmed. Lincoln remained master of the emotional 
and intellectual situation. In three or four hundred 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 133 

words that burn with the heat of their compression, 
he tells the history of the war and reads its lesson. No 
nobler thoughts were ever conceived. No man ever 
found words more adequate to his desire. Here is the 

5 whole tale of the nations shame and misery, of her 
heroic struggles to free herself therefrom, and of her 
victory. Had Lincoln written a hundred times as much 
more, he could not have said more fully what he desired 
to say. Every thought receives its complete expression 

10 and there is no word employed which does not directly 
and manifestly contribute to the development of the 
central thought. 

As an example of Lincoln's more familiar style, we 
may quote from that inimitable series of letters to his 

15 generals to which we made allusion on a former oc- 
casion. The following letter was addressed to General 
Hooker on his being appointed to command the Army 
of the Potomac, after mismanagement and failure had 
made a change of generals absolutely necessary: — 

20 "I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. 
Of course I have doue this upon what appears to me to be 
sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know that 
there are some things in regard to which I am not quite satis- 
fied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skilful soldier, 

25 which, of course, I like. I also believe you do not mix politics 
with your profession, in which you are right. You have con- 
fidence in yourself, which is a valuable, if not an indispensable, 
quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, 
does good rather than harm; but I think that, during General 

30 Burnside's command of the army, you have taken counsel of 
your ambition, and thwarted him as much as you could, in 
which you did a great wrong to the country and to a most 
meritorious and honorable brother-officer. I have heard, in 
such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both 

35 the army and the Government needed a dictator. Of course, it 



134 WASHINGTON, WEBSTEE, LINCOLN 

was. not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the 
command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up 
dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I 
will risk the dictatorship. The Government will support you to 
the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than 5 
it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear that 
the spirit, which you have aided to infuse into the army, of 
criticising their commander and withholding confidence from 
him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you as far as I 
can to put it down. Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were 10 
alive again, could get any good out of an army while such a 
spirit prevails in it. And now beware of rashness. Beware 
of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward 
and give us victories. ' ' 

It is possible that this letter may sound too severe in 15 
tone_when read without the context. If, however, the 
condition of the army at the time, and the intrigues 
of the various commanders are considered, it will be 
recognized as erring in no way on the side of harsh- 
ness. The irony is particularly delightful, and in no 20 
sense forced. . . . 



NOTES 

GEOEGE WASHINGTON. 
FAEEWELL ADDEESS. 

AUTHORSHIP. 

The first draft of most of Washington's state papers was 
prepared by others. The papers were not, however, given out 
until revised, well considered, digested, and rewritten by 
Washington himself. In 1792, Madison, at Washington's 
request, furnished him a draft of an address to the American 
people on Washington's expected retirement. Having been 
prevailed upon to accept a second term, Washington did not 
again take up the project of a farewell address until 1796. 
The address was dated September 17, 1796, and contains some 
suggestions from Madison's former draft and some from Ham- 
ilton. ' ' The copy from which the final draft was printed . . . 
is wholly in the handwriting of Washington. It bears all the 
marks of a most rigid and laborious revision. ' ' Sparks : Writ- 
ings of Washington, Vol. XII, appendix. 

THE OCCASION AND THE CIRCUMSTANCES. 

What is excellent in literature is preserved because of the 
universal element of truth and the evidence of great per- 
sonality in it. Even though utterly ignorant of the historical 
facts back of Washington's Farewell Address and unac- 
quainted with the life of Washington, a reader could not miss 
the appeal of the great national principles which the address 
embodies; nor could he escape the feeling 'that he is in the 
presence of a great and admirable personality. A knowledge 
of the facts and of the life, however, would greatly deepen 
appreciation. Eecall in connection with the introduction 
of the address (p. 35— p. 38, 1. 15) the great debt of 
gratitude which the country owed to Washington for 
his services in the Eevolution. Eecall the fact that he was 
probably the only American who could have gotten the new 
government under way amid the perplexities that arose after 
the dismal failure of the old Confederation. Eecall the bitter 

135 



136 NOTES 

and unjust criticism of his administration and of himself. 
And then note the spirit of good-will, concern for the public 
welfare, and dignified modesty where much personal credit 
might have been claimed. The first topic of the discussion 

(p. 38, 1. 16 — p. 41, 1. 27) enjoins love of country, pride 
in the national union. There were still a great many Ameri- 
cans who remained in the colonial condition of mind, who 
took their politics from abroad, and thought politically as 
Frenchmen or as Englishmen rather than as Americans. There 
was also considerable unfriendliness and jealousy between 
North and South, East and West, — a feeling that appears 
to this day on occasion, usually showing itself in connection 
with tariff bills, or discussions of the money question, or the 
bank question. The logic of Washington's first topic will be 
keenly felt by the student who is informed about the attitude 
of different sections of our country towards the Assumption 
Bill, the National Bank, the Excise Bill, the Whiskey Insur- 
rection, the Genet Affair, the Jay Treaty, the Spanish Treaty, 
the Proclamation of Neutrality. (See any of the larger his- 
tories: Hildreth, volumes III-V; Schouler, volume I; Sparks, 
Life and Writings of Washington, or the volumes in the 
American Statesmen Series on Washington, Jefferson, Hamil- 
ton, and Jay.) That the warning was timely will be clear to 
those who recall the Virginia and Kentucky Eesolutions of 
1798, and the rumors of secession in connection with these 
and with the Hartford Convention sixteen years later. Wash- 
ington next takes up more specifically (p. 41, 1. 28 — p. 45, 1. 3) 
the danger to the Union arising from political parties based 
on geographical lines, and here refers by name to the treaties 
with Spain and England, thereby recalling the agitation, based 
on sectional lines and on foreign affiliations, that was aroused 
by the proposal of these treaties. (See Lodge: George Wash- 
ington, vol. II, pp. 135, 167, 180, 201, 205.) He next empha- 
sizes the need of an adequate central government (p. 42, 1. 26) 
and of obedience to it (p. 43, 1. 9), warning against combina- 
tions and factions (p. 43, 1. 19) and against the spirit of 
innovation. (Lodge: Washington, II, 266-268.) The discus- 
sion of party spirit (p. 45, 1. 4 — p. 46, 1. 23) recalls the fact 
that Washington entered upon the Presidency with the impos- 
sible expectation that parties could be eliminated from govern- 
ment. His cabinet, however, represented in Hamilton and 
Jefferson respectively, the two principles along which parties 
speedily formed. (Alexander Johnston: American Politics.) 
The Farewell Address is to be read as his final judgment that 
parties are inevitable, but excessive party spirit is forever to 
be repressed in a free country. (See chapter V, vol. II of 
Lodge's biography, on "Washington as a Party Man.") It 



NOTES 137 

is a corollary of- this that a party when in power should pro- 
ceed with moderation and not in a spirit of vengeance, and 
should keep well within constitutional limitations (p. 46, i. 24 
— p. 47, 1. 17). The next section of the address (p. 47, 1. 18 — 
p. 48, 1. 12) should recall the words of the Ordinance of 1787. 
On public credit and acquiescence in revenue laws (p. 48, 1. 13 
— p. 49, 1. 4), the experience of Washington's administration 
with Hamilton 's financial measures and with the Whiskey 
Insurrection, plainly speaks. (See Lodge: Washington, II, 
122-128). The last topic of the discussion (p. 49, 1. 5— p. 55, 
1. 7) deals with the principles that should govern our country's 
foreign policy. The inveterate antipathy against England and 
the passionate attachment for France are alike condemned 
(p. 49, 1. 22), though the countries are not named. Pages 50 
and 51 recall the Genet Affair, with the attendant exhibitions 
of foolish popular affection for France and equally foolish 
popular hatred for England; and the disgraceful intriguing 
of one American faction with the French minister to the United 
States. (See Lodge: Washington, II, chapter IV.) The great 
rule of conduct (p. 51, 11. 24-28) in foreign affairs, as laid 
down by Washington, was nobly fulfilled in the diplomacy of 
the late John Hay, Secretary of State. In closing with a 
defense of the Proclamation of Neutrality, Washington reached 
a true climax, a fact not generally appreciated today; for that 
proclamation embodied, in effect, all the fundamental principles 
laid down in the Farewell Address. It meant national soli- 
darity against the world, as opposed to a divided nation with 
conflicting sympathies running wildly in favor of one foreign 
country or another. The conclusion (p. 55, 11. 8-30) like the 
introduction, illustrates the highest use of personal reference. 
But the evidence of great and admirable personality is found 
not merely in the sentiments of the introduction and the con- 
clusion. It appears in the magnanimous and perfectly adequate 
treatment of the principles announced one after another in 
the body of the discourse; in the final character and nobility 
of those principles; in the repression of the controversial spirit 
and the choice of the highest plane of discussion. If the 
address had been written in the spirit of controversy, it must 
have remained on the low plane of fact; it comes to us not on 
that plane, but on the plane of truth. The next speech in this 
volume, Webster on the Character of Washington, contains an 
exposition of the main truths of the Farewell Address. 

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES. 

Make a complete outline of the address, following the form 
of the outline of Webster's Bunker Hill Monument Address 
as given in the introduction to this volume (p. 24). Are the 



138 NOTES 

topics of the address related to one another by the law of 
cause and effect, or by similarity and contrast, or by conti- 
guity? What passages or maxims would you select for memo- 
rizing? What audience is Washington addressing? Do you 
find the appeal to community of interest anywhere plainly 
expressed? Does the persuasion arise from the subject, the 
method of treatment, or the speaker? What does Washington 
mean by the distinction between political and commercial in our 
dealings with foreign nations? Is there any ground for think- 
ing that the principles of the address are in any respect 
obsolete? On the immediate effect of the Farewell Address, 
see Lodge 's Washington, volume II, pages 248-251. 



DANIEL WEBSTEK. 
THE CHAEACTEE OF WASHINGTON. 

THE SPEAKER. 

When this speech was delivered, in 1832, Webster had been 
United States Senator from Massachusetts about five years, and 
had previously served several terms in the House of Eepre- 
sentatives. He had already enjoyed five great triumphs. As 
a lawyer he had won a favorable decision from the Supreme 
Court of the United States in the Dartmouth College Case; 
he had gained fame also by four remarkable orations: one 
commemorating the landing of the Pilgrims, one at the laying 
of the corner stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, one on 
Adams and Jefferson, and one in reply to Hayne. These had 
made Webster recognized as the leader of the Union sentiment, 
the national idea, in the country, just as Senators Calhoun and 
Hayne were already the recognized leaders of the confederation 
sentiment in the country, of the idea that the Constitution is 
merely a compact. Although he served twice as Secretary of 
State and was twice a candidate for the presidency, it was in 
the Senate, as the expounder of the Constitution on the national 
theory, that he performed his greatest service. His last great 
speech, March 7, 1850, was on the slavery question. He died 
in 1852 at the age of seventy. See Lodge: Daniel Webster 
(American Statesmen Series), especially chapter IV; Curtis: 
Life of Webster, especially chapter XI; Whipple: Essays and 
Reviews, Vol. I; Whipple: Webster's Great Speeches. 

KIND OF ADDRESS. 

An address which takes for its title the name of a great 
man may (1) be merely narrative and biographical. This it is 



NOTES 139 

likely to be, and needs to be, if the man whom it celebrates 
has but recently passed away, or if, though long celebrated, his 
life in many of its details has been forgotten. (2) It may be 
judicial, aiming at a careful estimate of the worth of the life 
and of its influence. (3) It may be appreciative and 
eulogistic, dealing not with the facts of the life but with 
the exemplary principles which guided the great man in his 
work. (4) It may take the life and the principles which gov- 
erned it merely as a point of departure for discussion of pres- 
ent day problems and duties and of the spirit in which they 
should be met. In these days a Washington's Birthday ad- 
dress is likely to be of the type last named. Webster 's 
address is not judicial and is only incidentally biographical. 
It is in the main an appreciation of Washington's character, 
and the appreciation is deepest when Webster speaks of Wash- 
ington 's devotion to the paramount idea of Union, to the 
country as one nation (pp. 69-71) ; for this was the idea to 
which Webster himself was supremely devoted during his whole 
life. 

THE THEME. 

The subject of this address is Washington; the theme, 
everywhere present, is the spirit of American Nationality as 
exemplified in Washington. The sentiment of nationalism, of 
an inseparable unity of states, of a supreme union as an 
essential of true liberty, was still not dominant in this country. 
Webster had given it a commanding utterance two years before 
in the Reply to Hayne. Now he recurs to it. At the opening 
of the speech (p. 56, 11. 9-11; p. 57, 11. 8, 21; p. 58, 11. 1-11) 
it is calmly assumed. In the body of the discourse, which 
begins on page 58, line 22, it is appealed to incidentally as 
the key to the proper appreciation of Washington's character 
(p. 60, 11. 3, 4, 14, 15; p. 61, 1. 19; p. 62, 11. 12-17; p. 63, 
1. 9; p. 64, 11. 5-15; p. 65, 11. 12, 16-25 [referring to the 
Proclamation of Neutrality], 32; p. 66, 11. 10, 11; p. 67, 11. 1, 
10, 14, 32; p. 81, 1. 23), but finally (pp. 69-73) the senti- 
ment of nationalism becomes the main object of the discus- 
sion. Thus the various topics of the address (beginning 
respectively on pages 58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68 and 
69) are bound together by this pervading sentiment. 

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES. 

Make an outline of the address. This address abounds in 
specimens of the climax; almost every one of the longer para- 
graphs affords a specimen. Note how each climax is 
approached. Webster does not often in his speeches use ex- 



140 NOTES 

tended figures, but in this address such figures are numerous. 
See p. 57, 11. 9-12, 11. 26-32. Also see p. 58, 11. 17-21 (perhaps 
the finest of all), p. 64, 1. 26; p. 69, 1. 13; p. 71, 11. 22-30; p. 
72, 11. 8-19. On p. 64, 11. 20-22, Webster adapts Goldsmith's 
lines referring to Burke: 

1 ' Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind, 
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind. " 

— Goldsmith: Retaliation, 31. 

Note the large use of rhetorical questions in this address. 
Whence arises the persuasive element in the address, from the 
subject, from the method or from the speaker? 

THE BUNKEE HILL MONUMENT. 

THE OCCASION. 

A monument to General Warren, whom Webster calls ''the 
first great martyr" of the revolution, had been erected by 
King Solomon's Lodge of Masons, Charlestown, Massachusetts, 
and had been dedicated, in 1794. General Warren in his life- 
time had been Grand Master of the Massachusetts Masons. 
But there came in the course of years a desire on the part of 
Congress, the Massachusetts legislature, and the people gen- 
erally, for a grander memorial not only to Warren but also to 
the other patriots who had fought at Bunker Hill. An asso- 
ciation, the Bunker Hill Monument Association, was formed, 
with Webster as President of the Board of Trustees. Funds 
were raised and on June 17, 1825, the ceremonies of laying 
the corner stone took place. The procession included the mili- 
tary, followed by two hundred veterans of the Eevolution, in 
carriages, forty of the veterans being survivors of the battle 
of Bunker Hill. Then came the members of the Monument 
Association and of the Masonic fraternity, followed by 
Lafayette, who had arranged his progress through the country 
so as to be present on the occasion. Many civic societies fol- 
lowed and the procession was attended with great enthusiasm 
and a universal outburst of patriotism during its long prog- 
ress from the State House to Breed 's Hill. Thousands had 
come to hear the great Webster, whom the trustees of the 
Association had appointed orator. For this extraordinary 
occasion, Webster had made preparations that were unusual 
for him. He had written out the speech in full, whereas it was 
his custom to write out and commit to memory only the most 
important and striking passages of his speeches. It is known 
that this speech caused Webster great anxiety; especially, the 
portion to be addressed directly to the noble Lafayette raised 



NOTES J41 

fine questions of taste, fitness, and proportion, that were not 
so urgent in the case of the direct address to the Bevolutionary 
soldiers. "He said," says Ticknor, "that he felt as if he 
knew how to talk to such men, for that his father, and 
many of his father's friends whom he had known, had been 
among them. ' ' 

QUALITIES OF THE ADDRESS. 

Five years before the date of this address Webster had 
given at Plymouth the oration celebrating the "First Settle- 
ment of New England/' which Ticknor described as "a 
series of eloquent fragments." In that oration Webster had 
touched upon the power of local association, the historical 
event, the character of the Pilgrims, the growth and future of 
the country, on liberty, on the national view of the constitu- 
tion, on education and on slavery. The point of Ticknor 's 
description is that these topics were not so closely knit to- 
gether as to make an organized unity. No such criticism 
could be passed on the Monument speech. Although the range 
of topics is even greater than in the Plymouth Oration, and 
consequently the problem of relating them closely to one 
another is more difficult, unity of organization is effected with 
apparent ease. (See outline and study of the principles 
of arrangement, Introduction, pp. 24-28.) Many of the 
ideas are the. same in the two orations; for instance the idea 
of the power of local association (p. 74, 1. 9. See also p. 56, 
1. 23), of the growth of mankind in education (p. 89) and 
in government (pp. 93-94). Besides unity and wide range 
of topics, the Monument Address shows ease of transition; its 
continuity is unbroken. In making transitions Webster uses 
the ' ' echo ' ' frequently, — some word or sentiment towards the 
end of one paragraph being repeated at the beginning of the 
next (e. g. "deep impression," p. 74, 1. 7, is echoed in "af- 
fect" and "emotions," 11. 10, 11). This is a special form of 
the arrangement by contiguity (see p. 24). Note also the easy 
approach to the address to the survivors (p. 80, 1. 19), to 
the veterans (p. 82, 1. 20) and to Lafayette (p. 87, 1. 26). 
Another quality conspicuous in all of Webster's orations is 
massiveness; there is a sufficient bulk of material gathered 
about each point to give it due importance and dignity; a 
sense of satisfaction is experienced as the discussion of each 
topic is concluded. The language is plain and direct; almost 
devoid of subtlety and fancy (the one fanciful allusion in this 
speech is to the ships about the Charlestown navy yard, p. 81, 
1. 11). Yet there is imagination (e. g. p. 75, 11. 8-23). There 
is picturesqueness (e. g. p. 79). There is force. These are 
higher qualities, independent of vocabulary and of sentence- 



142 NOTES 

length; they are qualities that arise from the vision or insight 
of the speaker into the deeper significance of the occasion 
(cf. pp. 75, 78, 81, 88, 89, 91, 93). The sentences are short 
and clear; they are void of monotony on account of the full- 
ness and variety of thought which they carry. It is Webster's 
simplicity of expression, combined with the amplitude of his 
thought and the dignity of his emotion, that explains the 
power of his speech. It was this that led those who listened 
to him to speak of his discourse as having " magnanimity,' ' 
or "high seriousness," or "largeness," or "sweep," or "ele- 
vation," or "tone." These words point to characteristics 
of the speaker's personality while, at the same time, they de- 
scribe his speech; thus they indicate his sincerity and perfect 
competence for the occasion. (Other points are touched upon 
in the Introduction, pp. 24-31). Webster's speeches are full 
of political wisdom and the Monument Address is no excep- 
tion. (See especially pp. 89, 92.) Our attention is held by 
his thoughts, rather than by the way in which they are 
clothed. He makes no effort for small adornment; quotations 
and literary allusions are few. That on p. 81, 1. 34, is from 
Milton's Paradise Lost, V, 310-311; that on p. 85, 1. 29, is 
from Virgil's Mneid, VI, 726 ("infused through all parts, 
intelligence moves the whole mass and permeates the great 
body"); that on p. 89, 1. 4 is from Horace's Carmina, I. 2, 
45 ("May you return late to heaven; may you live long! ") ; 
that on p. 94, 1. 18 is from Homer's Iliad, XVIII; books that 
Webster read in the academy and in college and that continued 
to be his favorites through life. From the nature of the case, 
historical references are numerous. The matters with which 
they deal, colonial history, the French Eevolution, the Greek 
Revolution, South American States, are treated at length in the 
larger histories, Fiske, Bancroft, Von Hoist, Lalor's Cyclopedia 
of United States History, or may be traced by use of the index 
volume of the American Statesmen Series. On page 95, 11. 20- 
26 the reference is to the events that followed the Greek 
War against Turkey, for independence (1821-1829). In 1830, 
the great powers declared Greece an independent kingdom, 
Turkey agreeing; but they were unable to provide a king for 
Greece until 1832. Meanwhile Greece was ruled by a dictator 
and conditions were so bad as to justify the alternatives 
mentioned, 11. 5-9. As would be expected, melody and cadence 
on the small scale of single sentences, are not prominent char- 
acteristics of Webster, but in the larger divisions of his dis- 
course, rhythm and harmony are prominent. They arise from 
the large sweep of his thought and emotion, and are best 
noticed as he approaches and reaches his climaxes (pp. 78, 83, 
97 and 99). 



NOTES 143 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
ADDRESS AT INDEPENDENCE HALL. 

Mr. Lincoln had spoken his brief but touching farewell to 
his Springfield neighbors, February 11, 1861, and had started 
for Washington. After stopping at various points to make 
speeches, he had reached Philadelphia, where he was to assist 
at a flag-raising. The secession of Southern states, the de- 
moralization of the Buchanan Administration at Washington, 
the timid attitude' of the North, and of Congress, were post- 
election developments. Through these, the issues on which 
Lincoln had won the election had suddenly become obsolete. 
The issue was now no longer anti-slavery, but the Union and 
how to save it. The Independence Hall speech recognizes this 
great change of issues (p. 100, 11. 5-7, 11. 19-21; p. 101, 11. 
3-10), and the Union is Lincoln's theme from this time on. 
The place suggested the central idea, "The Declaration of 
Independence furnishes the principle on which the Union must 
be saved." While hundreds of influential but timid Northern- 
ers were, at the moment, ready to yield any and all principles 
in order to pacify the South, here was a strong declaration 
from the President-elect, that there would be no war unless 
it was forced upon the government. The effect of this address 
was to hearten the North and to impress the South with the 
fact that Lincoln was in no sense doubtful as to the duty 
before him. In connection with the last sentence of the address 
it should be remembered that there were credible rumors of a 
plot to assassinate Lincoln as he should pass through Baltimore 
on the next day or two. The plot, if it existed, was frustrated 
by making the journey earlier than the time announced, and 
Lincoln entered Washington February 23d, unharmed. 

THE FIEST INAUGURAL. 

This, the. most momentous utterance in our history, left no 
doubt that the real issue was now union or disunion, and of 
the firm course President Lincoln would take. * ' The union 
of these states is perpetual"; "No state upon its own mere 
motion can lawfully get out of the Union"; "I shall take 
care that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all 
the states"; "The central idea of secession is the essence of 
anarchy"; "The power confided in me will be used to hold, 
occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the 
government, and to collect the duties and imposts"; "You 
have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, 



144 NOTES 

while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect 
and defend' it," — these direct, simple, firm, and earnest sen- 
tences, impossible to misunderstand, meant that the seceded 
states must either abandon their project or make war to main- 
tain it. By the most persuasive pleas and reasonings they were 
solicited to abandon their project. They are first assured 
(pp. 102, 103) that Eepubliean success does not mean danger 
to slavery in the Southern states; that the President deems 
the enactment of a Fugitive Slave Law a constitutional obliga- 
tion binding on Congress (pp. 103, 104). Indeed he makes 
suggestions for improving the existing law (p. 104, 11. 18-26). 
Then follow the open acknowledgment that an attempt is being 
made to disrupt the Union (p. 105) and the argument that 
the Union is perpetual and secession ordinances void (p. 106) ; 
the duty and intentions of the President (pp. 106, 107) ; the 
plea to those who love the Union (pp. 107, 108) ; the lack of 
real grievances against the government (p. 108) ; the reduction 
of secession to a logical absurdity (p. 109) ; the true attitude 
of the citizen towards the Supreme Court (p. 110) ; the folly 
of secession (pp. 110, 111) ; Lincoln's willingness that the 
Constitution should be amended (pp. Ill, 112) ; the appeal to 
faith in the triumph of the right (p. 112) ; the appeal to old 
friendship and to patriotism (pp. 113, 114). In an earlier draft 
of the inaugural the word nothing was used for the word void 
(p. 106, 1. 16), the word treasonable instead of the word 
revolutionary (p. 106, 1. 18). The clauses in view of the Con- 
stitution and the laws (p. 106, 1. 19) and as the Constitution 
itself expressly enjoins upon me (p. 106, 1. 21) were omitted; 
tangible way was used for authoritative manner (p. 106, 1. 27) 
and the last line of the paragraph (p. 106, 1. 30) read, that 
it will have its own and defend itself. (The student will find 
it instructive to consider what difference in implication there 
is between the word rejected and the word adopted in each 
case and to account for the alterations adopted by Lincoln.) 
The original draft of the final paragraphs (p. 113) read as 
follows : ' * My dissatisfied fellow-countrymen ; you cannot 
forbear the assault upon it; I cannot shrink from the defense 
of it. With you, and not with me, is the solemn question of 
Shall it be peace or a sword?" To this Mr. Seward objected 
on the ground that " something besides or in addition to argu- 
ment is needful — to meet and remove prejudice and passion 
in the South and despondency and fear in the East. Some 
words of affection — some of calm and cheerful confidence." 
Mr. Seward proposed the following: "I close. "We are not, 
we must not be, aliens or enemies, but fellow-countrymen and 
brethren. Although passion has strained our bonds of affec- 
tion too hardly, they must not, I am sure they will not, be 



NOTES 145 

broken. The mystic chords which, proceeding from so many 
battle-fields and so many patriot graves, pass through all the 
hearts and all the hearths in this broad continent of ours, 
will yet again harmonize in their ancient music when breathed 
upon by the guardian angel of the nation. ' ' Compare these 
versions with the text finally adopted by Mr. Lincoln and 
account for the alterations. Lincoln's fine precision in the use 
of words, his sense for choosing words with the association 
desired, his gift for direct statement, his ability to make every 
sentence say and imply no more and no less than he meant it 
to say and imply, can be illustrated on every page of this 
inaugural. He attributed his power over language to the fact 
that he never was satisfied with an idea until he had put it in 
language "plain enough \for any boy to comprehend." The 
tone is firm but kindly, the spirit breathes native greatness and 
honesty of intention. 

THE LETTER TO GREELEY. 

In spite of the clear statement of the First Inaugural that 
the supreme issue was not now anti-slavery but the saving of 
the Union, many of Lincoln's supporters continued to think of 
the war only in its bearings on slavery. The radicals were 
zealous to destroy slavery at once; the conservatives were 
willing to preserve it. Each faction was eager to criticise 
every act of the administration with sole reference to the 
effect on slavery. Lincoln was on record as saying that he 
believed the Union could not permanently endure half-slave 
and half-free. He was known to hate human slavery. It 
might be inferred that when convinced of the necessity of 
emancipation as a war measure, solely in order to save the 
Union, he would proclaim freedom to the slave. He was 
meditating whether the hour had not arrived and had dis- 
cussed the subject with his Cabinet July 22, 1862. But he 
had laid the proclamation aside awaiting Union victories. 
These did not come; and the radicals were more bitter in 
their criticism of his "inaction" than ever. August 20, 1862, 
the New York Tribune, Greeley 's paper, printed an open 
letter to Abraham Lincoln signed by Horace Greeley charging 
the President with not executing the laws energetically, with 
not carrying forward emancipation; with not taking counsel 
with radicals instead of conservatives, with acting timidly, 
with deferring to Southern sentiment, and with much more 
to the same purport. The purpose of Lincoln's reply was to 
restrain the impatience of those enthusiasts who felt as 
Greeley wrote, and to turn Greeley's letter to account in mak- 
ing public sentiment ready for emancipation. Lincoln aimed 



146 NOTES 

to go no faster in the direction of emancipation than he felt 
sure public opinion would warrant. There was for Lincoln 
every provocation to anger at the injustice of Greeley's letter; 
every incitement to reveal in detail his own plan for emanci- 
pation, and to make a promise on the subject. But Lincoln 
refused to yield to impulses of that kind. With rare mag- 
nanimity he overlooked the personal injustice, with rare dig- 
nity he denied himself the justification that a word might 
have afforded, refused to enter a controversy, refused to dis- 
comfit his accuser, and prepared the public mind for the 
proclamation which was published September 23d. 

THE SPEECH AT GETTYSBURG. 

This brief speech should be memorized and made a perma- 
nent possession. Of the same quality in tone, spirit, and perfect 
expression, is the following letter to Mrs. Bixby, of Boston: 

Dear Madam: — I have been shown in the files of the War 
Department a statement of the adjutant general of Massachu- 
setts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died 
gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless 
must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile 
you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot 
refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be 
found in the thanks of the republic they died to save. I pray 
that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your 
bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the 
loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to 
have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. 
Very respectfully yours, 

Abraham Lincoln. 

THE SECOND INAUGUKAL. 

By the time of the second inaugural the military success of 
the Federal arms was assured, the Union was probably saved, 
and slavery was being destroyed by the victorious advance of 
the Union armies. For those now defeated, who had brought 
on_the war, the great heart of Lincoln contained nothing but 
forgiveness. His fear was that the spirit of revenge which 
had begun to appear in Congress would dictate too harsh 
terms to the conquered and would perpetuate hatred and make 
real reconciliation impossible between the two sections of the 
country. The second inaugural address is the most magnani- 
mous of American state papers. Its final sentence might 
stand as the epitaph of its writer. ' ' This speech, ' ' says 
Morse, ' ' has taken its place among the most famous of all the 



NOTES 147 

written or spoken compositions in the English language. In 
parts it has often been compared with the lofty portions of 
the Old Testament. Mr. Lincoln's own contemporaneous 
criticism is interesting. ' ' I expect it, ' ' he said, ' ' to wear as 
well as, perhaps better than, anything I have produced; but 
I believe it is not immediately popular. Men are not flattered 
by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose 
between the Almighty and them. To deny it, however, in 
this case, is to deny that there is a God governing tha world, 
It is the truth which I thought needed to be told; and as 
whatever of humiliation there is in it falls most directly on 
myself, I thought others might afford for me to tell it. ' ' 
The address puts on the war an interpretation (p. 119, 1. 16 — 
p. 120, 1. 15) at once the highest, the profoundest, and the 
most magnanimous, rising above all controversies as to the 
relative blame of the North and the South for bringing on the 
scourge; it is divine retribution upon the whole nation for 
permitting a great wrong to continue for so many years. In 
this interpretation Lincoln anticipated the best judgment which 
history has pronounced in explanation of this and other sim- 
ilar conflicts of the world, notably the French Revolution. 
The deeply religious tone, the awe and the mystery of it, 
indicate the humble spirit in which Lincoln would have the 
nation proceed to the work of restoration and reconciliation 
that remained to be accomplished. In connection with p. 119, 
1. 19 read Genesis 3:19; with 1. 20, Matthew 7:1; with 11. 
23-25, Matthew 18:7; with p. 120, 1. 7, Psalm 19:9; with 1. 11, 
Isaiah 61:1 and Isaiah 30:26; with 1. 12, Matthew 20:12; with 
1. 13, Psalm 146:9. 

LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS. 

For the- various theories of reconstruction, — the restoration 
or presidential theory, conquered territory theory, state suicide 
theory, etc., see Lalor's Cyclopedia of Political Science and 
United States History, article on Reconstruction. Reconstruc- 
tion brought greater embarrassments than secession had 
brought, and aroused passions quite as fierce. The President 
was attacked for exercising powers that were claimed for 
Congress alone and for offering terms too lenient to the 
Southern States. The spirit of revenge, which Lincoln had 
feared, gained headway in Congress. The speech was delivered 
to a multitude that had gathered in the evening of April 11, 
before the White House, to express enthusiasm over the fall 
of Petersburg and Richmond and the surrender of Lee. It 
begins by generously attributing to Grant and the army all 
of the honor of the victory and then calmly, without the slight- 



148 



NOTES 



est hint of irritation at unjust criticism, appeals by argument 
and explanation for support of the humane and liberal policy 
in Louisiana, which was already bitterly assailed by politicians 
of his own party. Keasonableness, benignity, honesty of inten- 
tion, greatness of heart, characterize the utterance. But so do 
practical sagacity, homely wisdom, and simplicity. Lincoln 
touched no difficult subject in his life without simplifying it 
by his statement. He brushes aside the fine spun theories of 
reconstruction with which men had befogged their minds and 
calls attention to the one purpose for which all should work 
(p 124 11. 6-21). Two weeks after this speech Lincoln was 
assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, who, in the words of 
Morse, "slew the only sincere and powerful friend whom the 
Southerners had among their conquerors." 

THE LONDON SPECTATOK ON LINCOLN. 

Of the countless tributes to the greatness of Abraham 
Lincoln, none are more instructive to the American than those 
coming from foreign sources. That quoted in the text is 
especially noteworthy for its analysis of Lincoln's literary 
power, as well as for its true insight into his character. Cite 
from the speeches of Lincoln in this volume passages that 
verify the points made by the London Spectator. Cite an 
example of persuasion arising from the order in which Lincoln 
arranges the topics of his discourse. Cite from Lincoln a case 
of refutation; a case of persuasion arising from logic alone; 
several memorable maxims of government. 



JUN 3 1910 



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